


a blue million miles

by getmean



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, JUST GUYS BEIN DUDES, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Vietnam War AU, anal sex/oral sex Oh You Know, mutual [clapping emoji] masturbation, non-essential character death (he's essential in my heart but not tom hanks'), slaps the roof of this fic this baby can hold so many loaded looks, the slowest burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2019-08-06 17:21:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 110,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16391954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getmean/pseuds/getmean
Summary: He’s always within arms reach, Eugene notices, maybe a month into it all. Four lots of crossed out tally marks in Sharpie on his helmet. He chalks it up initially to coincidence, because God knows there’s no place else to be in this whole vast, stinking jungle. They all fetch up against each other by some point in the day besides, flotsam and jetsam of the United States Marine Corps, tossed reckless into the bush with little thought to what they have to do there in the first place besides kill, kill, kill. Shelton, with his smile that is all teeth, shirtless and bony and always, always, by Eugene’s side.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song 'her eyes are a blue million miles' by Captain Beefheart! 
> 
> I've done my Darndest to make sure this thing is at least somewhat historically accurate, and as someone who studied the vietnam war I think it's pretty decent! There are various quotes taken shamelessly from movies, a liberal helping of music from the decade, and plenty anti-war sentiment so everything is Right Here
> 
> As always, this was once supposed to be a fic a couple thousand words long after I realised how Snafu hangs around Eugene pretty much always - it's currently sitting at 21k in my google docs, so it's time once again to inflict my longfic sledgefu on the world. Enjoy!

Why is it that bad memories come in snapshots? To this day, all Eugene can remember about his grandmother’s funeral is the certain quality of light on the black paint of the hearse, and the way his aunt’s nude hose were stained from kneeling down next to the coffin. It’s the same for the avalanche of events that led him to be crouched ass deep in rice paddy water in some distant part of Vietnam, hands braced on top of his helmet as he watches his CO brace an M-79 against his shoulder, and fire. The field ahead of them erupts in a spray of mud and water as the grenade explodes, and a deadly silence settles for a second before the rattle of machine gun fire splits it. Eugene tucks his forehead down close to his knees, and begins to murmur whatever snatches of the Lord’s prayer he can remember from before his lapse in Christianity. He’s sure he’s gonna die, even if he always manages to scrape by unscathed. Call it classic fresh meat melodrama, but Eugene isn’t sure which he would prefer. 

His snapshots from the day he was drafted are muddled, muddy. Eugene remembers his mother’s white, terrified face, his father making phone call after phone call for two evenings straight while she begged him to enroll in university, in an ROTC programme, anything to defer his draft or to keep him out of the shit. Eugene remembers nuzzling his face into his dog’s warm head every night for a week, and then the maelstrom of basic training before springing fully formed from his drill instructor’s head into the jungles of Vietnam. Lean, mean, killing machine. Eugene spent the first two nights sleepless and terrified to the point of tears, boiling alive in the oppressive August heat. 

Eugene would categorise his transformation into the bloodthirsty Marine the Corps wanted as _botched_. He’s the latest addition to a company of men who mainly ignore him for the most part, only engaging with him for some of that lighthearted, masculine meanness that Eugene has always been woefully bad at. He bites back a couple of times, testing the waters, and with that comes acceptance. Leyden, a little guy from Long Island with a mouth too big for his stature, an eighteen year old called L’Eau, whose mother sends him a letter every week, and a few other friendly short-timers who are so close to rotating back to the world that they don’t care to make friends or enemies. 

Then there’s Shelton. A small, sharp faced gunner with big pale eyes and something disinterested and vaguely unpleasant curling his mouth at all times. Eugene feels hesitant to lump him in with his newfound allies and friends, and that’s only because the guy is just so goddamn uncomfortable to be around. It’s the way his gaze skitters away when he’s speaking, his drawling, Louisiana accent that always makes Eugene feel like he’s being mocked. Leyden seems to get a real kick out of him, and vice versa, and Eugene watches the two of them interact and wonders what he’s doing wrong to keep Shelton from engaging with him. It’s all this that makes the fact that Shelton becomes something of Eugene’s personal shadow, all the more confusing.

He’s always within arms reach, Eugene notices, maybe a month into it all. Four lots of crossed out tally marks in Sharpie on his helmet. He chalks it up initially to coincidence, because God knows there’s no place else to be in this whole vast, stinking jungle. They all fetch up against each other by some point in the day besides, flotsam and jetsam of the United States Marine Corps, tossed reckless into the bush with little thought to what they have to do there in the first place besides kill, kill, kill. Shelton, with his smile that is all teeth, shirtless and bony and always, always, by Eugene’s side. Eugene figures that it must be one of Shelton’s funny little quirks, like how he keeps himself liberally doused and stinking of that insect repellent he keeps squashed in his helmet band along with his crumpled Lucky Strikes and battered Zippo. 

Eugene watches him, a few feet away with his back to the rest of the company and his eyes on the line of the jungle. Body strung taut like a bow, always alert for something which rarely ever comes. Eugene’s eyes follow the path of his hand, up and up until he’s pulling his helmet from his head and tipping his face back and up towards the waning evening sun. It’s a rare moment of looseness, one Eugene feels a little odd to be privy to. Something about it feels intimate and private, despite the trucks rumbling past them, the dust clouds they kick up and the chatter of ten dozen bored, sun-mad men. 

He’s got a short back and sides like the rest of them, but when he takes his helmet off all that sweat and humidity has his natural texture yearning against the short crop of his hair. Eugene finds himself transfixed by the nape of his neck, the beginning of a curl returning to his dark hair. It’s sweet, and boyish, far sweeter than Shelton himself. It’s with this transfixion on the steadily curling hair at the crown of his head that Eugene begins to realise just how pinned to his side the other man seems to be. It’s subtle, and Eugene wouldn’t have picked up on it if it wasn’t for his own fascination, but once he notices it’s hard to ignore anything else.

Shelton, bumping up alongside him in the line for chow in the evenings, hunched down next to him in scattered hail of bullets, or sat a few feet away while they’re all idle (the most common of the lot) with his eyes on his cigarettes and the jungle and his carbine braced deadly over the dusty knees of his dungarees. He becomes so synonymous with Eugene that men begin seeking out Eugene if they’re in search of Shelton. Maybe it’s Shelton’s own, odd show of acceptance. Because, with all this, Shelton has barely spoken more than a handful of sentences to Eugene since his arrival in Vietnam. He has no tallies on his helmet, only a crude depiction of LBJ, but his eyes are huge and hollow in his dirty, sunbeaten face, and that shows a man’s time passed more effectively than any faded marker on dirty olive drab. It almost explains his odd, silent, watchful demeanour. Eugene is new enough to be able to separate the salty from the completely _brined_. Perhaps Shelton has seen too much of something, has inverted just far enough to be capable but...strange. That’s Eugene’s theory, anyway, though it barely helps whenever he finds himself being watched by those huge, pale eyes. 

Their interactions can be narrowed down to forced small talk on Eugene’s part, and one odd offering of a cigarette from Shelton that Eugene had turned down and almost immediately regretted. Vietnam is a place to come and catch a tan, pick up some nasty habits and try your best to leave most at the door when you rotate back to the world, if you get that far. Whether that be cigarettes, whores, or bloodlust. Best let it be something as harmless as those, anyway. Eugene had seen the glassy eyed stares of the opium sick, skinny recruits all but swallowed by their uniforms, by the hollows of their eyes. Sure, Eugene had been drafted, much like every other kid twisting his brain up too young in the goddamn jungles, but somewhere between basic and the long boat journey to shore, he’d managed to convince himself of what he was about to be doing. Continuing on what his father had started in the World War, perhaps, but at least he wasn’t playing cowboy like most of the other guys he met at basic were. It didn’t make him shit his pants any less the first time he came under fire, but his early idealism had carried him through a lot in the first few weeks that may have made another man buckle. 

He wonders if Shelton had enlisted, or been drafted. He wonders how many days he’s got left, wonders what he’s seen in the tangles of the jungle, and what he'd seen in _Eugene_ to stick so close to him. He's handsome, in a wiry, impish sort of way, his deep down South, Bayou accent heavy and meandering when he speaks. Eugene would be lying if he said he isn’t attracted to him.

“You gotta girl?” Someone asks Eugene, one hot, long afternoon in which they spend a mile tramping through a rain swollen river, brown water up around their thighs and pouring fresh from the sky on their heads. Rain so dense that you just set your eyes on the man in front and _waded_. 

Eugene risks a glance to the side, and finds Leyden leering back at him through the downpour. He rolls his eyes, and turns his gaze back to the flooded river. “No.” He says, loud enough to be heard over the thundering of the rain on the surface of the water, on the trees around their heads. “Sorry to admit, I don’t.”

Shelton, who has been attempting valiantly for the past thirty minutes to keep a cigarette alive long enough to take a drag from it, gives up, pitching it away from himself with a noise of disgust. “You gotta sister?” He drawls, the corner of his mouth hitching up in a smirk as Leyden roars a laugh. Eugene’s so surprised to find Shelton speaking to him that it takes him a moment to process a reply. Long enough that Shelton adds, “C’mon, make my day a little brighter, Sledge.”

Eugene finds his voice in time to quip, “You’re shit outta luck. Only gotta brother, and that ain’t quite what you’re lookin’ for.”

Leyden laughs again, but Eugene’s attention is still on Shelton, his hooded eyes in the gloom of the rainy day, and the way his smile stretches at Eugene’s words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, lemme know what you thought! I'll update wednesdays :~)
> 
> My tumblr is @ getmean- I used to be dizzyondreams here on AO3 and recently changed it to match my tumblr url, if there's any confusion!


	2. Chapter 2

Monsoon season sets in heavy and fast, and by the time Eugene feels fully dry again he’s two months into his time in Vietnam and somehow none the wiser. The rain had washed everything out of him, and emerging onto literal and figurative dry land from it felt like some kind of reverse baptism. If someone had told him three months ago that rain could be so exhausting, so demoralising, he wouldn’t have had a clue what they meant. Vietnam is beginning to hook into his bones, into his soft tissue, carving out a home inside him like the parasite it feels like. Eugene’s early optimism is as exhausted as his body is, lost somewhere alongside his convictions in the heaving humidity of the jungle before a storm. He had killed his first man, or at least the first one close enough to see the life leave. Blood washed away by rain. It barely felt like it had happened at all, and perhaps that would have been easier to accept if his lifeless face didn’t rise up behind Eugene’s eyelids every time he tried to sleep. Shelton’s face had loomed out of the darkness, out of the sheets of rain, one step behind him as he always was. 

“Still wanna be salty?” He’d murmured, barely loud enough to be heard over the thundering of water on leaves. Eugene hadn’t replied, afraid that he’d vomit if he opened his mouth. Shelton’s angular, bony face, near-pale in the low light. He was a spectre dressed in khaki, those burgeoning curls black and rainslick flat to his head. Slowly, Eugene had shook his head, feeling far too young for the scene in front of him, around them. Shelton’s eyes had flicked away, that odd, tight alertness pulling his attention from Eugene until he hooked an arm around Eugene’s neck and tugged him away. 

But that’s long behind him now. The rain had been its own sort of trial by fire, and Eugene can already feel the cogs turning inside of him as he battles with a way to cope with the things that had happened. He wonders what way he’ll turn; inward, strange and near-mad, or worse, berserk, teeth bared and always ready to tear limb from limb, Viet Cong or not. If there was one thing he’d learnt in those rain drenched days, is that any Vietnamese was Viet Cong. Mother to baby to man. The thought makes him sick to his stomach, but he clings to that shred of humanity as tightly as he can. As long as he can still feel disgust and pain, he knows he’ll be safe.

For now, having dry boots feels an odd luxury, and it's all Eugene wants to focus on. Days crawl by under the beating down sun as man by man, they begin to come back to themselves.

“‘S no wonder they invented that water torture, huh?” Leyden says, one bright morning over a cigarette and a rather bitter mug of coffee. 

Shelton, sat alone about three feet away, snorts. Eugene glances over his shoulder at him, and they share an exasperated, conspiratorial glance. “That was the Chinese, Leyden.” Eugene says, cheek still pressed to his shoulder as Shelton holds his gaze a second more before dropping it. A smile curves his mouth, and Eugene keeps his eyes on him long after he has turned his focus to the rifle he’s cleaning at his feet. The two of them had grown closer in their months of rain and mud, as if Shelton had sensed that Eugene had needed someone to lean on. God knows why he decided it had to be him, but perhaps he liked that Eugene could bite back as good as he gave it, once he had gotten over the feeling of having to walk on eggshells around the man. Shelton’s a whole lotta bark and an infinitesimal less bite, but the monsoon season had toughened Eugene so far that he found Shelton didn’t scare him with it anymore. Perhaps it’s just familiarity, or perhaps Shelton had softened in the same rain that had hardened Eugene.

“Well, excuse me, Mister College.” Leyden mutters, breaking through Eugene’s thoughts, and Eugene pitches his cigarette butt at him in retaliation, making him yelp and flap at his lap as it lands. “Jesus, you’re tryna set me on fire, Sledge?”

“If I thought it’d make you shut up, maybe I’d try harder.” Eugene shoots back, and a small swell of pleased gratification bubbles up in him when Shelton snorts again. He’d been tough to figure out, at first, those hazy first days in country where Eugene was so muddled up and afraid about being in Vietnam that attempting to crack the nut that was Shelton was the furthest thing from his mind. He can still remember his fixation with the nape of Shelton’s neck, his fascination with such a sweet, vulnerable part of the man who seemed so mean and standoffish. Eugene thinks he’s beginning to know him better, now. Beginning to understand just how many contradictions Shelton is made up from.

A battered, rusty-looking M274 rolls by them then, and Leyden has to raise his voice over the noise of its engine as he says, “Sure, Shelton, yak it up, you bastard. You ain’t gone to college neither.” He coughs, the dust kicked up by the truck hanging in the still air. It’s only somewhat of a nice change from mud.

“Don’t need college to tell me you’re an idiot, Leyden.” Shelton’s voice is slow and lazy, stretching out his syllables in that way he does when he’s aiming to annoy. Shelton is near impossible to anger when in a good mood; Leyden’s barking up the wrong tree by a mile. 

“An’ I don’t need nothin’ to help me figure out where you been.” Leyden retorts, and the way Shelton’s head snaps up betrays the mocking grin that follows. “The Marines know you served time?”

“What,” Shelton says, archly, and Eugene can't help but notice the way he relaxes slightly at Leyden's words. “You think you got me clocked better than our beloved Corps?”

The two of them laugh, leaving Eugene lost and fumbling for some sense of meaning in their exchange. Every time he thinks he has Shelton figured out, he throws Eugene a curveball he can’t hope to understand. The conversation shifts, as it usually does, to Leyden’s girl back home, and Eugene doesn’t get an opportunity to bring what he had said back up before their platoon leader is coming around to get them up and off their asses. 

The plunge back into the jungle, destination and objective as unknown as ever, and Eugene loses the thought to the next few days of sweating and hacking through thick undergrowth. Leyden rotates back to the world a week later, replaced by a friendly Texan named Burgie and a couple of other men to join their ragtag little platoon. Their conversation fades into the back of his mind as Eugene begins to settle into the absurd, maddening little groove of their war. 

\------

The pressure of war is all-encompassing, it’s absolute. Eugene sleeps in snatches, his turn on watch or not. The incessant small noises of the jungle keep him from sleeping deeply, or at length. Maybe it’s what their enemy wants; an exhausted, half-mad band of idiots falling over themselves at the snap of a twig, the sudden rustle of undergrowth. With their tactics, it could be anything from a jungle pig to an armed Viet Cong, and that’s what keeps Eugene awake and aching and blinking restlessly at the stars. 

Shelton rarely sleeps either, the man forgoing any kind of attempt to get any shut eye until he’s on the verge of passing out. Then he sleeps, long and deep. Eugene always finds those hours lonely, despite how little they talk anyway. It leaves him alone to toss and turn and jump at shadows, slapping at mosquitos and just about drowning in the midnight heat. 

It’s yet another oppressively hot night, and once again Eugene finds sleep evading him. It’s not even the heat that's taking its toll, or the noises, the bloodshed, the memories. Eugene’s ninety-four days in country are beginning to take their toll in ways he didn’t anticipate, and can’t find a way to control. A kind of deep seated anxiety that he’s sure has much to do with the uncertainty, the sheer _stress_. It leaves him restless, skin crawling with fear after fear cropping up in his head, unable to pass through. 

“Hey,” A voice through the darkness, a familiar drawl. Eugene freezes, ears pricked as he waits for Shelton to speak again. Silence floods the space between words, full of the sounds of the nighttime jungle. A few feet away, Eugene catches the flick of a Zippo flame, the click as it’s extinguished. Shelton’s face is ghoulish in the quick, clandestine light. “Sometimes it comes easier if you give up on it.”

Eugene props himself up on one elbow, back stiff from so many weeks spent sleeping rougher and rougher. “What?” He asks, voice low under the darkness, under the threat of being found. Shelton is a shadow against the darker black of the night, an abstraction. A glowing cherry of a cigarette, making its path from knee to mouth and back again. 

“Sleep.” Shelton says, like it’s obvious. Eugene shifts so he can sit up fully, his eyes adjusting to the darkness just enough to make out Shelton’s expression. His face carries the blankness of someone unwatched, someone who doesn’t know their expression can be seen. It’s eerie, in a mask-like way, and so Eugene turns his gaze away to the terrifying, black expanse of the tree line.

“‘S that why you’re always gettin’ so much sleep?” He asks, voice dull with exhaustion. Sweat is beading at his lower back, and he tugs at the open collar of his shirt in vain. It’s either strip to the waist for the chance of some air on your skin and get bit to death by all manner of bugs, or stay buttoned up and boiling and get eaten alive just the same. Eugene’s beginning to understand that in Vietnam, everything is a lose/lose situation. 

“Ain’t realised you keep an eye on my sleeping. Or lack of.” Shelton says, a trace of amusement in his voice. Like it’s funny that while he’s been keeping an eye on Eugene, Eugene had been keeping one on him. When Eugene doesn’t reply, Shelton taps his hand on the breast pocket of his shirt, the movement traced by the trail of his cigarette. “Dexedrine does it for me, personally.”

It comes as no surprise that Shelton is operating on speed and probably has been the entire time Eugene has known him. It explains the alertness, at the very least. “You actually take those?” He asks, scratching idly at a particularly nasty mosquito bite on his neck. Eugene generally tossed whatever pills the medics gave him, save for the CP pills.

“Only at night.” Shelton says, eyes downcast over that humourless smile of his as he lights a fresh cigarette off the butt of his old one. “Doctors orders.”

“They want you crazy.” Eugene murmurs, watching as Shelton shifts, settling finally with his legs crossed, Indian style. The faint glow of the moon through the thick canopy of trees overhead picks him out in shades of silver and grey, almost romantic, almost film noir-esque, if Eugene could forget the circumstances they were under. It’s hard to experience beauty in a place like this. “Just bat outta hell mad. Berserk, killers.” Shelton’s head is a mop of curls by now; Eugene has been watching their progression like it means something. Always in reach, always in eyesight. Eugene has still never worked out why.

“I love killing.” Shelton says, then, and all Eugene can see are the whites of his eyes, the shine of the moon on his teeth as he grins. Lunatic. Moondrunk. Eugene studies what he can see of his expression, the comment barely touching him, as accustomed as he was to the concept by now.

“Do you really believe that?” He asks, slow, unsure if he’d like to know the answer. Shelton fascinates him in a way he recognises as something close to infatuation, and it’s almost concerning how all that Shelton has said to him so far hasn’t dented that. There’s no sense of bravado to him, but Eugene knows how to recognise a streak of drama in someone well enough. Shelton likes to shock. 

“Maybe.” He says, after a second of rumination. His voice is more sober than it had been. “‘S easier to love it. Or else it gets too complicated and _then_ you’re all fucked up.”

Eugene realises that this is perhaps the most he and Shelton have ever spoken, despite all their days together, despite their closeness. Unbidden, he remembers the smell of wet dirt and blood in his nose, Shelton’s wet, pale face under his oil slick of sodden curls. _Still wanna be salty?_ The body memory is vivid, and Eugene finds himself unable to shake the smell of blood.

“Ain’t they just two different ways to be fucked up?” Eugene murmurs, finally, and Shelton’s eyes settle on him at that. There’s a smile playing at his mouth, and Eugene puts it down to the low light that to him it almost looks _fond_. “I know which one I’d rather have to live with.” The stench of blood soaking into pitch black soil is pennies in Eugene’s nose. He can feel that his brow is wet with sweat. 

Shelton snorts, and finally glances away, his eyes sliding over Eugene and off into the black of the night. “You remind me of someone.” He murmurs, voice oddly melancholy. His wrist is propped delicate on his knee, bony through his worn-thin dungarees. His cigarette glows forgotten, burning down between his fingers as he says, “Had red hair like you too,” His cigarette drifts slow to his lips, and smoke spills from his nose as he adds, “Thought I was seein’ a ghost first time I saw you.”

“Who’s that?” Eugene asks, and Shelton turns his face towards Eugene without lifting his gaze, pressing his cheek comfortably to his shoulder. Those heavy lidded eyes fixed firmly on the ground. 

He’s silent for a long time, discarding the butt of his cigarette before bringing his hand to rest tight in his curls. He draws his fingers through them, a frown furrowing his brow. Eugene can smell the stink of the insect repellant on him as a breeze picks up, shifting the trees above them until the whole jungle is murmuring. It’s eerie, and eerier still when Shelton fixes those big, pale eyes on Eugene and says, “Just a guy I roomed with.” That odd energy he normally carries with him, the one which knots him up into something strange and coiled and ready to bolt, is gone. The set of his shoulders is something close to exhausted, and everything clicks into place with a bolt of understanding. The casual indifference in his voice belies a unique pain that Eugene is sure many wouldn’t pick up on. It’s heartbreak and it’s regret and a grief never properly expressed. 

Eugene hates that he can pinpoint it, and hates even more that he can relate.

“Did you ship out together?” He asks, testing the invisible waters that Shelton has led him to the shore of. The trees whisper back, the breeze unsettling the scents of loamy ground and unwashed men. Shelton’s throat shines with sweat, and Eugene watches his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows.

He doesn’t reply, and Eugene finds himself incapable of opening his mouth to ask the real question that’s playing on his mind. Silently, he extends his hand into the darkness, until his knuckles graze the back of Shelton’s hand. Through the dim light of the moon, Eugene can see Shelton’s eyes close, and he lets Eugene’s hand rest light against his own for a second before he draws it back to clutch nervously at his curls. 

“You better get your rest.” He says, voice light and indifferent again. “Gotta long way to go tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!!! long chapter because i'm just so excited to get into this story already :^) hope you enjoyed !


	3. Chapter 3

“If you could get one thing from home, what would it be?”

They’re tramping through the thick undergrowth, footsore and sweating. Eugene can feel the mother of all blisters beginning to come up on his heel, already so sore that he almost wishes he’d listened to Shelton’s crude advice of pissing in his boots to soften the leather up. Almost.

“Pussy.” Shelton quips, clinging close enough behind Eugene that he can smell his sweat, his mozzie repellant. Eugene wants to strangle him for the answer, but judging by the noises of a slight scuffle behind him, and Shelton’s half yelp/half laugh, someone already took care of it for him.

“Like you could find pussy to bring with ya.” Burgie says, cuffing L’Eau around the head for sniggering. “There’s kids present, asshole.”

Shelton just sucks his teeth at that, shouldering his way between Eugene and Burgie to shoot back with, “Alright, what’d you rather have than pussy, Burgie?” He braces his elbow on Burgie’s shoulder, over familiar, and Eugene tries his best to bite back the wave of jealousy at the gesture. “Considerin’ only steers and queers come from Texas.”

“Jesus, shut up.” Eugene mutters, irritable under the humid heat of the jungle, his heavy pack and sore feet, the long way they have left to cover that day. Shelton whips his head around at that, the line of his body immediately combative. He’s been like this since he’d accidentally opened up to Eugene that night a few days ago, as if acting an ass with Eugene would take back whatever vulnerability he’d seen. 

“My Creedence tapes.” Burgie says, then, ignoring Shelton’s comment. His voice is hard enough to let them know he’s enforcing the little authority he has over them. “And for your information, Shelton, my family raises horses. Now, shut up before I send you back to the rear.”

Eugene grits his teeth in the beat of silence that follows, knowing well enough the expression Shelton must have on his face at having rank pulled like that. Surely enough, Shelton bites out, “So, queer?” The venom packed behind the word is nauseating. Eugene ducks his head, eyes on the makeshift trail the men taking point have carved out for them. The smell of crushed foliage heavy in his nose, acrid. 

“You’re makin’ this a harder time for yourself than it has to be.” Burgie snaps, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder. “Go on, Private.”

Shelton bares his teeth in annoyance. “War is hell.” He quips, sarcastic, before for once doing as he’s told and dropping back a few metres in the line. 

Eugene fills the gap that Shelton had egregiously shouldered himself into, falling back in line with Burgie’s pace. The other man is slightly red in the face, more so than the flush of exertion or heat. Eugene keeps his eyes glued to the floor, watches his boots and nothing else. 

“I dunno what the fuck has gotten into him lately.” Burgie mutters, after a long period of silence broken only by the conversations of the Marines behind and in front of them, the sound of their boots tramping through the undergrowth. Somewhere up the line, a radio crackles. The stock of somebody’s M-14 is thumping against their kabar sheath with every step they take. When the jungle decides to be silent, it’s absolute. 

All Eugene can think of is Shelton closing his eyes at the touch of Eugene’s hand to his. His fond smile; _you remind me of someone._ “I think he’s just testing you.” He offers, because even though Eugene may have an inkling towards why Shelton is acting so unpleasantly, God knows it’s not Burgie’s business. Or Eugene’s, really. “Lookin’ to see where you’ll bend and when you’ll snap. Plus, he takes the uppers they give us.”

Burgie snorts, disbelief heavy in his expression, but just as he’s about to reply there comes a shout down the line. They freeze for a second, and then comes the first pop of a bullet, and Eugene is flinging himself off the path and into the undergrowth faster than his brain can catch up with his reflexes. He screws his eyes shut, his breath heavy and loud in his ears as he fumbles with his rifle, caught between him and the rich black soil of the ground, twisted in the thick roots of plants. The bullets are screaming over their heads like hornets, now. Dimly, he registers the far off yelling of the RTO. 

He grapples, air rushing out of his lungs faster than he can pull it in, and then a hand is on his shoulder and it’s pushing him back. Eugene fights it, his mind going suddenly clear as he throws his hand back to where his kabar is buttoned firmly into its sheath.

“Jesus, fuck, don’t pull your goddamn knife on me.” Comes a very familiar voice from the figure looming over him, and Eugene draws back far enough to make out Shelton’s face, half shadowed in the bush. There’s a long slash across his cheek, blood webbing down as far as his jaw. Deep, judging by the flow of blood. Eugene shoves him away, roughly, about to cuss him out for surprising him like that while they’re being _shot at_ , before another burst of machine gun fire sends them diving for the ground.

That vile mosquito spray smell is clogging his nose. Eugene settles for grabbing Shelton by the collar and yanking him in close enough to hiss, “I shoulda stabbed you for that.”

Shelton barely bats an eyelid, just shoves Eugene away from him and further into the bush with a single-minded intensity in his eyes that’s almost frightening. His face is a mask, just those pale eyes burning out of it. Eugene can recognise him as having retreated somewhere, that that part of Shelton that makes him anything more than an extension of his rifle is gone. Absently, Eugene wonders if his drill sergeant knows what a good job he’d done in conditioning him. It’s obvious basic had had none of the same effect on Eugene; his heart is still hammering in his chest, half from the unexpected attack, and half from Shelton’s sudden re-emergence at his side. 

Up in front, someone yells _cover_ , and Eugene ducks his head as the artillery the RTO had been screaming down the line about finally comes in. The jungle rings with the noise of it.

Silence is deafening, following that. 

“Nothin’ like a little firefight to get the blood up.” Shelton breathes, eyes alive and wide in his face. Eugene can’t look away from him. He has that Dexedrine stink to his breath. The blood from the slash in his cheek is staining the collar of his flak jacket, and he swipes at it pointlessly when he catches Eugene looking. “Fuckin’ elephant grass, huh?”

Eugene can’t find any words in his brain apart from: “Did you come outta cover to check on me?”

Shelton levels him a look that would’ve made Eugene wilt if he was as green as Shelton seems to think he is. “What kinda John Wayne fuckin’ Marine do you think I am?” He asks, nastily. His pupils are blown wide from the speed, eyes huge and darting in his sun beaten face. Eugene doesn’t give him the satisfaction of looking away, even though their brief firefight is over, and the jungle around them is rustling with re-emerging Marines. Eventually, Shelton breaks eye contact, shuffling away from Eugene and standing with a grunt, the heavy pack on his back throwing his centre of gravity out. “Ungrateful.” He mutters, and then extends a hand without looking at Eugene.

After a moment of hesitation, Eugene grasps it, and lets Shelton haul him upright.

“You’d’ve had to do something besides startle me half to death for me to be grateful, you bastard.”

Shelton snorts, swiping again at the bleeding cut on his cheek as he takes a step back from Eugene. His eyes are off on the jungle again, that erratic, hunted air about him that Eugene has come to associate with Shelton after he takes the uppers. “You don’t even know what I do for you.” He mutters, half under his breath as though Eugene isn’t supposed to hear. The thought of Shelton going out of his way to do something for Eugene is almost absurd, until Eugene tracks back through the last however many months of his time in country, and a pattern begins to form. It’s irritating, it’s confusing, it’s...sweet?

“I never asked you to do anything for me.” Eugene mutters, voice low as a pair of medics hurry past with a stretcher carried between them. Shelton watches them go by, chin tipped up like he’s considering something. 

“Goin’ out in a glad bag ain’t no way to go, huh?” He murmurs, ignoring Eugene, who only narrowly talks himself out of throwing his hands in the air in frustration. Instead, he half turns, scanning up and down the row of men milling around for the order to move out again, looking for a familiar face.

“Worse things to happen than a body bag.” Eugene says, attention diverted by trying to spot Burgie. He’d been right next to him when the shooting had begun, so where could he have gotten to? Eugene can feel his heart rate picking up, and he squeezes the stock of his rifle as he scans the line once more. “Like staying in this goddamned war.”

“Don’t fuckin’ say that.” Shelton snaps, an edge to his voice so hard that Eugene stops in his near-panicked searching and turns to him. He’s clutching his rifle so hard that his knuckles are pale through his skin. “Nothin’ is worse than that.” There’s something so tightly furious in his voice that Eugene’s mind pops up, _grief_ , before he can even process Shelton’s tone himself. It’s that same grief from that moonlit, restless night, only honed and worked to a razor sharp edge. 

The two of them regard each other for a long, tightly drawn out moment, before Eugene says in a small voice, “Shelton, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

Shelton just turns away from him, the hard line of his jaw tight with emotion. “Burgie’s over there.” He mutters, gesturing up the line. “He’s lookin’ for you too. Tell him ‘s no thanks to him you didn’t get your fool head shot off.”

“I wasn’t gonna-” Eugene doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence, as Shelton has already turned on his heel to head in the opposite direction. He watches him go, the straight set to his back, his fingers clutching and pulling nervously through his hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! :~) i've got a spotify playlist in the works to act as like a companion thing to this fic, mostly for self indulgent reasons because i love the music of the 60s but also because a lot of music gets/is going to get namedropped so i thought i'd put it all together in one place! i'll probably post it on tumblr before the new update, so keep an eye out there @ getmean !


	4. Chapter 4

The streets of Saigon are packed to the gills with people; men in military fatigues mixing in amongst the native residents of the country like there isn’t a war being fought a few miles out in the jungles and the deltas. It’s the latest in the many unexplained and random places Eugene has found himself shuttled back and forth to during his months in country so far, and it’s too soon for him to decide whether it’s the best or the worst. Some kid on a scooter had stolen his flak jacket just moments after he had put it down, so he wasn’t feeling particularly favourable to the place yet.

“I heard we’re losin’ the war, and that’s why we’re gettin’ a little R&R.” L’Eau offers, he and Eugene and Burgie being buffeted along by the throng just as everyone else was. Burgie cuffs him around the head.

“Don’t talk like that.” He mutters, although Eugene can tell that the same fear is hanging over Burgie’s head just as it’s hanging over his. “We’ll be back out to the boonies before you can get your immersion rot cleared up, L’Eau. This is just a trip to keep us from goin’ crazy out there. Everyone gets one, it’s just our luck we ain’t out in anywhere _nice_.”

“Hopefully not before we all get a night’s sleep on a real mattress.” Eugene mutters, darkly. The last few weeks have seen him as sleepless as Shelton, especially since a buddy of his had gotten loaded up on a bird after a particularly nasty shrapnel hit to the stomach a week ago. Eugene doesn’t expect to hear from him again, whether he lives or dies. And so the war goes on. 

“Don’t know what you consider a real mattress but those camp beds back there ain’t it.” Burgie replies, stepping down into the gutter to make way for a woman laden down with baskets to pass. His feet slosh in the stagnant water sitting there, but he pays it no mind.

“Better than the fuckin’ ground.” Eugene retorts, which makes Burgie grin.

“True that.” He says. 

The barracks just outside of Saigon are pretty rough and ready, little more than the hooches scrapped together out in the bush. Just flimsy little tin things, a dozen beds to a shack, the whole thing stinking of cigarettes and sweat and hot dry air. Eugene does all that he can to avoid them in the daytime; wandering around the streets of Saigon, sitting outside of the barracks and soaking in the winter sun. Shelton takes up gambling, or rather he takes up _losing_ , and Eugene can while away a good hour to watching the pursuit if Shelton is on a particularly hot streak.

He watches the movies in the nighttime. He drinks the lukewarm beer, and eats the goddamned beans and dicks served every night for chow. He doesn’t go see the girly shows, because there’s only so much testosterone he can take, and he really hates watching the poor girls be yelled at like that. Burgie doesn’t go either, and so the two of them play cards against the backdrop of whatever pop song the poor creatures are dancing to, and try their very best not to think about how young they likely are.

“Most of us ain’t old enough to drink, so why should it matter if they are?” Shelton says, once, when Eugene murmurs his disapproval for the shows, for Shelton’s attendance. “They’re only up there dancin’, we’re out here _killin’_.” 

Eugene hadn’t had anything to say to that, but Shelton joins him and Burgie for their nightly card game the following evening with nothing more said. He brings a small flask of hooch with him, strong enough to put plenty hairs on their chests, and the three of them sit in the over-hot barracks while Nancy Sinatra sings about her boots in the distance. 

Around ten, men begin to filter back from the show, which Burgie takes as his cue to abandon the card game for his nightly high strung pace around the barracks with a cigarette. It’s become somewhat of a ritual, so Eugene and Shelton leave him to it and continue their cards.

“You drunk?” Shelton asks, eyes on the hand in front of him. Eugene shrugs, and Shelton follows up with, “Inna bettin’ mood?”

Eugene scoffs, throwing down his hand onto the scratchy blanket that covers his bunk. “I can’t in any good conscience take any more of your money, Shelton. You’ll be keepin’ me in these fine Vietnamese cigarettes for life at this rate.”

Shelton’s tone is distinctly sour when he mutters, “You ain’t ever in a gamblin’ mood,” and pitches his own hand in after Eugene’s. They’re both sitting cross legged on their respective bunks, and the liquor is worming it’s warm way through Eugene’s bloodstream more and more with every sip. He’s feeling light headed, and in a rare good mood. 

“You ever wonder what Burgie gets up to while he’s out wanderin’?” He asks, stretching his legs out with a groan until his feet bump up against the side of Shelton’s bunk. His knee cracks, and he hisses as he rubs at it. Vietnam has fostered so many brand new aches and pains in him that Eugene feels about thirty years too young for. 

“Well you know he ain’t out there chasin’ skirts.” Shelton says, leaning across the small space between their bunks to gather his cards back up with a grunt. This close, Eugene can see the smattering of dark stubble on his jaw, the freckles on the tops of his bare, tawny shoulders. He smells like sweat in a way that Eugene knows shouldn’t be attractive, but he can’t help but lean in a little closer before Shelton draws away. “Not with that girl back home.”

Eugene can’t tear his gaze from Shelton’s big hands, shuffling his cards this way and that. Dirty, callused things; far more accustomed to a rifle than a wash. Call it the alcohol, call it the close proximity, but Eugene finds himself thinking that they would probably smell metallic, like pennies, like blood, if they were pushed up against his face. 

The bed creaks under him as Shelton shifts to tuck the cards down into his mess of personal effects; a comb, a balled up white t-shirt with yellowing pit stains, a prized, wicked little knife he’d stolen off a dead VC. Eugene follows the shift of muscles under his skin, transfixed in the same way as he’d been in those hazy, early days in which the back of Shelton’s head was all he knew. 

“You wanna go find a bar?” Eugene finds himself saying, and it’s so out of character for him that Shelton just laughs. 

“What?” He’s looking at Eugene as though he’s grown another head. “You ain’t kiddin’?”

“Shut the fuck up.” Eugene mutters, feeling himself flush hot to the tips of his ears. “You’re such an ass sometimes.”

A couple of Marines that Eugene knows only by sight pass by, loudly expressing in great detail just how they’d fuck the girls dancing from earlier. The noise in the barracks kicks up a notch as someone switches on his portable radio, blaring The Rolling Stones for everyone to hear. Shelton’s expression shifts into something a little less mocking.

“Fine. If you’re gonna start with the name calling.” He says, reaching down for his boots as he begins to pull them on, followed by that crumpled, dirty white tee. “Lead the way, Gene.”

Neither of them are familiar enough with the streets of Saigon to venture any further than the bars the GIs frequented. Noisy, smoky places, lit up in garish neon with American pop music spilling loud into the street. Inside is a mass of bodies, the timbre of a hundred men packed into a place far too small for them battling it out with The Beatles blaring over rattling speakers. Shelton leads the way through the crowd, small and lithe with his overgrown curls and shrunken white t-shirt. Eugene is helpless but to follow, resisting the urge to grab hold on the back of Shelton’s shirt as the two of them get swallowed in the sea of testosterone and cheap beer. 

“Two.” Shelton says, holding up two fingers as they fetch up against the bar. The dour faced bartender slides a couple bottles their way, and Shelton snatches them up before turning expectantly to Eugene. 

“Really.” Eugene deadpans. Shelton winks, eyes sliding away across the crowded bar as a smile curls his mouth. Eugene pays up, a dollar on the sticky bar top, before he’s crowding close to Shelton to reclaim his beer and pull him into a smaller, quieter corner. 

“You wanna sit outside?” Shelton asks, raising his voice over the music, and Eugene just shakes his head before taking a long swig of his beer. “Suit yourself.”

“Can’t be fucked with tryna get through all that every time I finish a beer.” Eugene says, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the bunch of Army meatheads that are congregating by the bar. Shelton shrugs, producing a rather flattened pack of cigarettes from the back pocket of his fatigues as he does so, along with his Zippo.

“So,” He says, mangled around his cigarette. “We’re _drinking_ , tonight.” There’s a sparkle of real amusement in his eyes, not that mean, mocking kind of humour they usually hold. It’s pretty infectious, and Eugene finds himself with a stupid smile slapped on his face as he leans forward to pluck a cigarette from Shelton’s pack.

“Why not?” He asks, grinning around his pilfered cigarette as Shelton makes a face of mock surprise, a smile marring his act. “Who knows how long we got left of this little bit of peace? When else do ya get to be twenty somethin’ years old in a foreign country with all the freedom in the world?” Eugene’s high spirits from earlier haven’t yet been diminished for the very first time since he’d gotten served his draft papers, He can feel a lightness within himself. A little bit of sleep, a little bit of hot food, and booze, seemed enough to set a man straight. Shelton is looking at him like he’s crazy.

“If this ‘s what you call freedom.” He mutters, eyes sliding away from Eugene’s face as he scans the bar once more. His cigarette is held light between index and thumb, bony wrist crooked _just so_ , and Eugene wants, he _wants_.

“‘S better than gettin’ killed, huh?”

Shelton’s eyes turn back on him, seaglass green in the light of the bulb over their heads. He’s handsome, lit from above like that, cigarette in his mouth and beer swinging by the neck from his fingers. His face is feline in its thinness: the sharp rise of his cheekbones, his jaw, that full upper lip and the wedge of his nose. He plucks his cigarette from his mouth, eyes following it down as he ashes carelessly onto the floor. “You ain’t wrong about that.” He says, eyes flicking up to capture Eugene again. They narrow, and his lip curls, halfway to teasing but not quite there yet. Almost mean. “Whatja know ‘bout death?”

“Enough.” Eugene says, and the two of them eye each other for a long moment before Shelton drops his gaze, eyes down at the beer in his hand. He scratches his thumbnail along the edge of the label on the front, idly messing with it. Eugene lights his stolen cigarette, finally, and the jukebox and the dozens of men yelling over it floods into the silence that followed. The song is something slow, and impossibly sweet, and nothing Eugene’s heard before so it must be new. Anything from the world filters through at a snail’s pace in Vietnam; they’d only just now heard about the riots at the Democratic Convention, all the way back in August. He lets himself get carried along by it, propping his boots up on the bench Shelton is seated on opposite him as he slouches back and sips at his beer. Not a lot of time for romance, in Vietnam. Not a lot of time for beauty. His eyes drift to Shelton, who has finished his beer in record time. The label lies in sticky little torn off strips in front of his nervous hands. Short nails, bitten to the quick.

Before Eugene can open his mouth to say anything, Shelton asks, “Why did you come here?”

The jukebox switches over, a Presley song. Eugene finds himself struggling to switch gears, his mind still half stuck on that sweet song, on the way the lamplight looks on Shelton’s dark skin, how his over-small white tee stretches thin across his bony chest, close in the armpits, high on his hips. “What?” He says, stupidly, and then, “I was drafted.”

The noise of the bar swells a little as a group of men shoulder up to the bar, and so Eugene has to lean across the table to catch what Shelton says next. “No, I mean,” He purses his lips, a frown crumpling his brow. “Why didn’t your parents buy you out?” His eyes lift, curiosity bright in them. “‘S always confused me, about you. They’re obviously rich enough.”

Eugene takes a drink of his beer to avoid biting out what he wants to say, his knee jerk reaction to the question. Shelton watches him, leaned across the table just as Eugene is, his hands picking and tearing at the wilting cardboard of his pack of smokes. “They wanted to.” He admits, setting his beer down after draining the last few drops. He isn’t feeling _drunk_ exactly, but just loose enough to entertain Shelton’s question. He generally resents people writing him off as just the son of a doctor, a kid with more money and more education than sense. “I wanted to go because I ain’t any higher up than anybody else who got drafted. It ain’t right that people can pay their way outta war when others can’t.” He rubs a thumb through the ring of moisture that his beer bottle had left on the wooden table, smearing the water. “Besides, I didn’t wanna be a draft dodger.”

Shelton’s smile stretches, toothy and amused. “Well ain’t you a Samaritan.” He drawls, eyes alive in his face as they flick over Eugene. “Lowerin’ yourself down to play war with the masses.” 

Eugene almost takes the bait. Almost. “Ain’t the masses that make it hard,” He says, “That’s all on you, Shelton.”

Shelton’s grin stretches, and then he laughs, a real laugh right from the bottom of his chest. They’re both leaned so close to hear the other’s words that Eugene can see all the fillings in his molars, can see how the collar of that tight, white t-shirt is frayed and ragged from wear. He grins too, something huge and happy balling up in his chest. He wants to run his hands over Shelton’s chest, his shoulders, feel that buttery soft cotton over the hard muscle of his lean little body. He wants to count his fillings with his fingers, with his tongue, one by one. 

“Round on you.” Shelton announces, the slap of his hand to the table jolting Eugene from this reverie. He grabs Eugene’s bottle from in front of him, spins it by the lip to squint at the label in the low light. “Ba Mui Ba.” He sounds out, tongue a little clumsy from his hooch and his quickly drunk beer. “Another two.”

“You like it?” Eugene asks, raising his brows as he moved to stand. Shelton smirks up at him, that sly curl of his mouth. Elbows hooked over the back of his seat, the bottom of his shrunken shirt just flirting with the waistband of his fatigues. His leg is thrown over his knee, boot bouncing in time to the song playing over the speakers. 

“I’ve gone Asiatic.” He says, teeth sinking playful into his bottom lip as Eugene tips his head back and laughs. Normalcy is a heady thing in wartime, and Eugene feels half drunk off of that alone. 

Three beers down, and Shelton makes the move to buy the first round of the night, weaving back from the bar with two bottles clutched in each hand. “I ain’t nothin’ but generous.” He mumbles from around a cigarette, ash falling down his front as it wobbles with his words. “C’mon, let’s go sit outside.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god this scene in all is about 6000 words so it was suuuper tricky to cut up for chapters, so apologies for that! but thank you for reading :^) early chapter this week because i'm headed to edinburgh tonight for a few days; i'll be back to the regular schedule next week! 
> 
> i've been considering posting twice a week because this fic looks well on it's way to 50k words (it's already 36k so far), and i don't wanna be stretching it out posting it forever! what's the mood? would you prefer double updates, or just longer ones? let me know :^)


	5. Chapter 5

They don’t wander far from the bar, just far enough that they don’t have to yell themselves hoarse for a conversation. Shelton is the first to sit, dropping down heavily onto the curb outside, not minding the gutter water his boots are in. With a clink, he sets the bottle he’s not drinking from down into it, and draws his cigarette away from his mouth in a plume of smoke. Eugene only hesitates for a second, before he’s sitting down gracelessly next to him, the strong beer throwing him off balance enough that he has to catch himself on the heels of his hands. Shelton snorts at him, features thrown into high relief by the wash of neon light from the bar’s sign. Shining in the whites of his eyes, off his teeth, off the dog tags hanging against his sternum. He looks like the devil in the red light, smile twisting behind the lip of his beer bottle as he throws his head back to take a long drink from it. 

Eugene brushes dirt from his palms, the bottles tucked into his jacket pockets cool against his sides. He’s overheated, flushed from the tropical winter heat, from the beer, from a feeling he wants to categorise as indescribable just to delay the realisation that he wants to kiss Shelton so badly his fingertips tingle with it. 

“I like this song.” Shelton comments, out of the blue, a half-smile on his face. He taps the bottom of his beer bottle against Eugene’s knee, and the touch jolts him back to reality. Eugene takes the distraction as a chance to draw a beer from his inner pocket, thumb over the mouth so as not to spill it. “You there, Gene?”

The gutter water is picking up the same red glow as Shelton’s copper skin; Eugene scrapes his boot through it just to disrupt their upside down reflections in the greasy water. Alice in Wonderland style. How’d that song go? _Feed your head_.

“How long d’you think this is gonna last?” He asks, slow, taking a drink of his beer. He lets his eyes drift out of focus as he stares out across the street. Lights blur to smudges, everything pleasantly hazy and far away. Shelton’s knee knocks against his own, and Eugene presses his chin to his shoulder as his eyes follow the movement, refocusing on that. On the bunch of Shelton's fatigues at the junction of his legs and the way they hug tight and worn thin to his thighs.

“What, this war?” Shelton asks, oblivious to Eugene’s distraction, his own attention diverted by his crumpled pack of smokes. He smacks the carton against his palm, that nervous smoker’s tic. Superstition. His dog tags rattle with the movement, drawing Eugene’s gaze. “Ain’t LBJ workin’ on it? The bastard.” 

“Nah,” Eugene murmurs, and Shelton glances at him sidelong, curious. “I mean like, _this_.” He gestures, and Shelton’s gaze turns sharper. “Bein’ able to breathe, out here.”

Shelton glances away, but not before Eugene can register the small flash of disappointment and relief twisting his features. He doesn’t know how to interpret it, and before he can linger on it Shelton is speaking, once again intent on lighting his cigarette. “Don’t get too comfortable.” He says, darkly. “Shit always seems to hit the fan the minute you relax a little.”

A breeze ruffles at the curls on Shelton’s head, and Eugene takes advantage of the dip in conversation to knock back the rest of the bottle of beer in a few long pulls. He stands the empty bottle in the gutter between their boots, and keeps his eyes trained firmly on his White Rabbit reflection as he says, “Did that happen to you?”

Shelton hums, swaying a little into Eugene’s side as he aims to tap his ash into the open mouth of the empty beer bottle. When Eugene glances at him, his jaw is set, brow wrinkled as he frowns down at the beer bottle between them. His own is hanging by the neck, half-empty in his fingertips. “Eugene,” He says, slow. “You wanna ruin a perfectly good night?”

The cigarette smoke he exhales is tinted red too. Inside and out. Eugene can feel the noise from the bar through the sidewalk, reverberating up through his body. He’s drunk, he realises absently, which makes what he has to say next almost _easy_. “It feels important that I know.” 

He produces his own pack of cigarettes in the silence that follows, and wordlessly Shelton hands him his lighter. Eugene studies it after he lights up, tilting it so the neon of the sign catches it, and scratches his thumbnail over the engraved letters on the face of it. _Hear all evil, see all evil, kill all evil._ On the back are a set of initials: _KM_. He wonders whose lighter this was, and whether it was ill-gotten or gifted. 

“Why?” 

The cigarette is stale; it’s a pack that Eugene had found forgotten in a pocket of his fatigues, but he finds himself smoking his way through it resolutely despite it. “I don’t know.” He says, truthfully, and eases the last bottle of beer from his jacket pocket. Sets it down with a clink next to his boot in the oil slick water. He rests his cheek on his palm, turned towards Shelton but eyes flitting from the curve of his jaw, to his ears, to the ragged collar of his t-shirt. “Wouldn’t you be curious if I told you that you reminded me of someone, but wouldn’t say nothin’ more?”

Shelton’s laughs at that, the sound humourless. “No.” He mutters, elbows tucked in close to his sides, knees drawn to his chest. “Because I ain’t a nosy motherfucker like you, Sledge.”

“Bullshit.” Eugene murmurs, watching Shelton’s face carefully for any shift in expression. The only thing that belies his nerves are his hands; he raises one to his curls, clenching his fingers into them. His thinking pose, his nervous tic. 

“Don’t make me say it.” He says, finally, and his voice is so horribly vulnerable that Eugene drops his gaze to his boots just to give him some semblance of privacy. It feels like he’s a brand new recruit again, still wet behind the ears and eyes fixed on Shelton from afar. “You know. I know. Ain’t that enough?”

Eugene can’t find the words to reply to that. The weight of his suspicions being confirmed is almost a little too much for his hazily drunken mind. Silent, he drops his half-smoked cigarette into the puddle at their feet, feeling vaguely nauseous. “How’d it happen?” He asks, finally, tilting his head to catch Shelton pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead. His expression is unreadable, half obscured by his hand, thrown partly into darkness. The noise of the music from the bar lowers a notch, meaning Shelton’s next words are too loud for the suddenly quieter street as he’s caught off guard.

“Shrapnel wound got infected.” He begins, hand sliding down to his mouth as he realises he’s spoken too loud. His eyes are wide in his face, staring off unseeing into the darkness of the streets. Behind them, the bar is winding down. “Didn’t tell anyone ‘cos he didn’t want a medivac in case we got separated for good.”

His cigarette is burned down right close to the skin of his fingers, but if it’s hot Shelton pays it no mind. He drops his forehead to his hand, just as the neon light above them is switched off. They’re plunged into the relative darkness that a city like Saigon can muster; Shelton is shadowy smudge to Eugene’s right, silent and still.

“I’m sorry.” Eugene says, unable to muster anything else. Shelton doesn’t reply, doesn’t move. The night is noisy around them, the sounds of city unfamiliar to ears that have spent the last handful of months in the jungle. “You wanna head back?”

Shelton’s hand drops from his face to flick his cigarette butt into the street, gazing off after it as he seems to consider the question. “Not yet.” He says, voice low. He ducks his head, hand casting around in the empty bottles by their feet until he finds the one Eugene had just abandoned. “Lemme finish this beer.”

Eugene lets him have it. He leans back on his palms, stretches his legs out into the road with a groan before tipping his head back to stare at the sky. There's the clink of a beer bottle on stone, and then the rustle of a cigarette pack, the _snick_ of the flint on the Zippo. Shelton blows the flame out, and the air fills with the smell of cigarette smoke. The concrete is hard under Eugene’s ass, the sky vast and black and unfriendly above the two of them. Times like this, it’s easy to forget there’s a war going on.

“What was the name of that song you liked?” He asks, and Shelton muffles a surprised, drunken snort against his palm. 

“Oh man,” He mutters, tipping his head to the side as he thinks, hand smearing over his face. “‘S a cover of _Seventh Son_ by some white dude, Johnny somethin’. My mama used to play the old version when I was a kid.” He takes a drag off his cigarette, and there’s something nostalgic in his tone as he murmurs, “The cover’s okay, but you can’t top blues sung by a brother. I used to like it a lot ‘cos I was the youngest ‘a seven.”

“Seven?” Eugene exclaims, shocked, and Shelton just hums. There’s an air of melancholy to him, shoulders heavy with memories. He reaches for his beer and takes a swig before replying, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth as he sets it back down.

“All boys.” He says, eyes distant as a frown wrinkled his brow. “Mama was all worn out by the time I came along.” His mouth curls, that familiar grief stark in his expression. “Long gone, now.”

It strikes Eugene that Shelton has probably had his fair share of loss for a lifetime. He also realises that this is the first time they’ve properly _talked_ , just the two of them, since that night in the jungle weeks ago. Slow, like he’s approaching an angry dog, Eugene moves to settle his hand on the nape of Shelton’s neck, exposed by his ducked head. He doesn’t know how else to comfort him; knows his words are too awkward, too weak, and that Shelton doesn’t care for platitudes anyway. It seems the simplest gesture, the most honest. 

He freezes up for second, and then Eugene strokes his thumb over the short, bristly hair at his nape, and his whole body turns boneless. His skin is warm under Eugene’s hand, and he’s about to pull away when Shelton moves to cover Eugene’s hand with his own. His head is dipped, expression unreadable, but when he takes his hand away, Eugene doesn’t move. 

“I’m sorry.” He murmurs, again, voice pitched low as if anything louder would shatter the fragile trust Shelton is showing him. He passes his thumb over Shelton’s nape again, rubbing comfortably at the space behind his ear as Shelton sighs, relaxing further into the touch. 

“Don’t say nothin’.” Shelton breathes, forehead pressed into his hands as Eugene lets his thumb rest just at the edge of his jaw. He can feel the flutter of his pulse beneath the skin, his coarse stubble from a shave skipped, can feel him clench his jaw, and relax.

Neither of them speak, and Eugene loses himself to watching Shelton’s calm, blank expression in the looking glass that is the gutter water under their boots. If Vietnam has taught him anything, it is that a rare peace comes about in times of turbulence. He feels the same for beauty, that it crops up the most profoundly in times of ugliness. Shelton seems a lesson in both.

They sit quietly until Shelton finishes a cigarette; his earlier one burnt down and abandoned before he could really smoke it. Together, they join the stumbling brigade of other drunken GIs returning back to the barracks, silent and sticking close together in the raucous flow of them all. Eugene can still feel the warmth of Shelton’s skin against his hand, carries it as a talisman through camp and into his narrow, lumpy bed. 

Shelton stays sat up on his bunk as Eugene readies himself for sleep, a silent, smoking figure through the darkness. The only thing tracking his movements is the glowing cherry of his cigarette, and the light is burned orange into Eugene’s closed eyes as sleep overcomes him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! and thanks for letting me know about what you wanna see from the posting schedule when i asked last week: i'm probably gonna be updating twice a week now! once on wednesdays like always and another on saturdays! i'm about to reach the 50k mark with the word count, and i'd prefer not to be uploading this for the rest of my natural life haha


	6. Chapter 6

Eugene carries out his tasks for the morning with an aching head that he feels he deserves wholeheartedly. An ice cold shower does little to dispel it, but cures the nausea he’s been battling with since he’d awoken, mouth dry and tasting like cigarettes and cheap, foreign beer. If there’s one thing he can take home from this whole experience, it’s that there is nothing worse than nursing a hangover in almost 90 degree heat. 

The days pass in Saigon with an odd kind of stuttering of activity, and Eugene’s long, hungover day is no different. Every man in the camp is on the same schedule, whether they like it or not. Waking at the crack of dawn is so deeply ingrained that Eugene couldn’t try and grab another wink of sleep if he tried. Shelton is long gone even by the time Eugene had woke, which he takes as a bad sign despite trying his best not to. The day stretches long and languid in front of him: all the time in the world to bake in the sun and worry about whether what he’d made Shelton admit last night was the final straw. 

Eugene finds welcome relief from the clamour of the barracks and of the city by sitting on the banks of the Saigon river, a stone’s throw from base camp but far enough to leave the smells of unwashed men and pot behind. The dirty water lapping at the banks of the river is a far cry from Mobile Bay, but if he closes his eyes and concentrates hard enough, he can almost smell the brackish water of it. The scent of summer honeysuckle, still fresh and sweet and unmarred by the chill of Fall. The sand between his toes, gritty between his molars from tearing into a picnic with sandy hands. They’re memories so nostalgic and happy that it almost hurts when Eugene opens his eyes on the Saigon river, and he is brought forcefully back to the present with one inhale that crowds the senses with the stink of the city, of the water. His unhappy stomach, the smell of cigarettes on his clothes, the sight of the slums from across the grey water. 

He takes the time to smoke a cigarette and ruminate on the night before while he has some rare time to himself. Peace and quiet is hard won, and if it means he has to sit on the banks of a vaguely depressing river, then so be it. His mind chews over the image of Shelton bathed in red neon, his curls clenched between wandering fingers, his small white tee and the dip of his slim waist. It’s unbearable, the want that curls through him, almost as unbearable as the knowledge that nothing will come of this. Drunken, midnight touches mean little at the time; even less in the harsh light of day. Eugene picks at his cuticles as he watches a barge pass by, the river frothing in its wake. He wonders if the water that ends up here is the same water that had washed that man’s blood away, all those months ago when Shelton was no more than a strange, alien presence by his side, and Eugene was nothing more to him than a boot with the same red hair as a man he’d just lost. He almost wishes it were the same, that he and Shelton had never grown close, that Eugene had never learned what his pulse feels like under the thin skin of his throat. 

Almost.

He takes a detour on his way back to the barracks; spends pennies on cigarettes, a new lighter, and some odd, glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in banana leaves that are so sweet they make his fillings hurt. The sugar leaves his spirits a little elevated as he walks back through base, cigarette in his mouth as he fumbles with the little paper bag of sweets. It’s quiet for early afternoon, but considering that it’s a weekend, most of the others were probably attempting to sleep off their hangovers like Eugene should’ve done if he had any sense. Instead, he wanders through into his barracks to grab his notebook and pencil from his rack, giving Burgie a wave while he’s at it. Burgie lifts his hand in reply, attention only just drawn away from the battered paperback he’s reading.

The sun is at its peak by the time Eugene settles down for good, that day. His long walk to the riverbank and through the city was enough to clear his head a little, to get some activity in his limbs to keep him from rattling out of his skin with boredom, with the feeling of being trapped. It’s hot, far hotter than early November should _ever_ be, but Eugene fetches up under the shade of a tree big enough that it keeps the sun off his head, and it’s enough. It’s enough to have a day as alone as a man can be, in wartime. He can’t remember when he’d last had a day to be by himself, to be as near to _himself_ as possible. Today, he’s not Private Sledge, or just a strip of numbers on an intake form. It feels good. It feels like his lungs can finally fill.

Eugene has been keeping a book, on and off, a poor attempt at a record of his time in Vietnam. It was for himself more than anybody else, so he could look back and try and remember what he already knew was the most important time of his life. Some pages held only a single word, or a big black cross if he hadn’t had the time or the words to spare that day. He flips through to the first blank page, and chews on his pencil as he racks his brain in an attempt to put words to the previous night. _Crimson and clover_ , he scrawls, and then goes back to underline _crimson_ harshly. He thinks of the bounce of light reflecting bloody on Shelton’s teeth as he threw his head back and laughed. The oil spill of neon and dirty water around their feet. _He’s a seventh son. We’re both youngest._

He writes for a long time, hand cramping as he tries to keep up with everything spewing from his brain and onto the paper. He’s so absorbed in his task that he doesn’t notice anyone approaching until a shadow falls across him, and Eugene barely has time to react before he hears a surprisingly chipper, “What’re you doin’?”

“Keepin’ track.” He replies, not looking up as he flips the page over to conceal what he’s written. Despite Shelton’s numerous insistences that he’s practically illiterate, Eugene knows better. He only says it so he can glance at the letters Burgie’s girl sends him and not get chewed out about it. 

“You write about me in there?” Shelton asks, and Eugene glances up, screwing his eyes up against the light. Shelton is silhouetted against the low winter sun, curls hanging over his forehead, damp with sweat.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Eugene says, slyly. Shelton just shrugs one shoulder, waiting, and Eugene relents. “‘Course I do, like I ever get a break from you to omit you.”

Shelton laughs, and finally takes a seat next to Eugene on the dry ground. “Y’know,” He says, brushing dirt off his palms as he settles in. “I think that’s the nicest thing anybody’s ever said about me.”

Somehow, Eugene half-believes it. 

“What’ve you been up to?” He asks, tucking his notebook away into his shirt pocket as he turns to look at Shelton. He’s afraid it would be awkward between the two of them, what with how they had left it the previous night, but it seems just like any other day. The front of Shelton’s t-shirt is near-transparent with sweat, and he’s breathing heavy, curls sticking to his face. 

“Went for a run.” Shelton said, a little breathless, stretching out his legs in front of him with a groan. “Then I spotted you.”

“So you thought you’d spoil my peace.” Eugene says, and Shelton shrugs.

“Someone has to.” He says, a smile beginning to curve his lips. “You looked like you’re havin’ far too much fun. Don’t you know there’s a war goin’ on?” He asks, smile blooming as Eugene laughs. The moment feels warm, affectionate; the sun through the trees throwing a soft, dappled light on Shelton’s skin. A breeze sways the tree above them, and Eugene realises whatever reply he’d had has long died in his throat. Internally, he marks a big X in a page of his notebook. Some moments are too amorphous and precious to collect.

“Hey-” Eugene begins, unsure where his sentence is going beyond, _I’m sorry-, I’ll never-, I promise-_

Shelton interrupts him, or rather, he speaks at the same time. Barrelling over Eugene’s half baked words with, “Actually, I came over because I wanted to talk about last night, Gene.” His tone is near solemn, and Eugene shuts up, immediately. His nails are back tugging at his cuticles, his own nervous little movement to mirror the way Shelton is pushing his sweaty curls back from his face. “Don’t mention anythin’ I said to anybody.”

Shelton has barely finished the sentence before Eugene is blurting, “I wouldn’t.”

Shelton levels him with a long look, eyes half-lidded and lazy. He’s leonine, laid up in the sun like that, the dappled light from the trees moving over him with the gentle breeze. It brings the smell of the river with it, silt and mud. Eugene swallows, always nervous when Shelton turns the weight of his gaze on him like that. 

“I believe you.” He says, finally, and glances away in the other direction. Eugene maps the curve of his neck, the tight line of his jaw, until Shelton turns back and catches him looking. The moment stretches, taffy slow, and Eugene feels full up on it, out of his head with the emotion rising in his chest. The smell of honeysuckle, hot tarmac and hotter sand, burning feet and blessed cool water. Then Shelton smiles, and Eugene has to tear his gaze away as he feels his face redden. 

“Shelton, I wanna ask you somethin’.” He says, eyes on his picked-red cuticles so he doesn’t get snared in that gaze again. 

There’s a beat of silence, and then Shelton is saying, “Shoot.” It takes Eugene a long moment to gather his words. He thinks of Shelton’s pulse under his thumb, like a tiny bird. 

“I feel a lotta affection for you,” He begins, mouth dry. Shelton’s gaze sharpens, and he sits up straight like he’s really listening now. Eugene can barely muster the courage to continue, but now that the hard admission is out of the way, it’s near _easy_ to ask, “So I just wanna know, didja love him?”

The very distant sound of the barracks invades the terrible silence that follows. Eugene can still smell the mud of the river in his nose, acrid, sulphur. If he could grab words from the air, he’d be scrambling right now. 

“Ignore me.” He says, quick, before he has to listen to that dead silence any longer. Shelton’s head is dipped, and Eugene can just make out his profile, his brow crumpled in thought. The expression on his face sends a thrill of fear through him, and he’s stuttering, “No really, Shelton, please.” He’d gotten it wrong, he’d misinterpreted it, he’s gonna get a section eight and get banged up in some madhouse for-

“If you love someone you have to be able to protect them.” Shelton says, cutting through Eugene’s hornet’s nest of panic like a knife. His voice is calm, even. Eugene can’t look away from him, especially not when he turns to trap Eugene in his gaze again. “I couldn’t protect him.”

With numb lips, Eugene murmurs, “What was his name?”

“Kit.” Shelton’s mouth twists ugly around the name. That old grief is back, and he breaks eye contact with Eugene to fumble clumsily for his smokes. It’s only after he gets one lit and in his mouth that he adds, “You don’t want nothin’ to do with me, you hear?” There’s something stern in his voice that Eugene doesn’t recognise, sharpening up that honey thick drawl into something worse than his usual lazy meanness. 

It throws Eugene far enough off kilter for a second that he’s silent, and Shelton seems to take it as Eugene backing down from the topic so he shuts up, slouches back down as he turns his face away. Then Eugene recalibrates, a hot little flash of anger sparking through him. “Oh, calm down.” He mutters, ignoring Shelton’s raised brows as he whips his head back around to stare at him. “Not every single little goddamn thing is life or death.” He plucks the small, sticky bag of dumplings from the ground next to him, and shows it to Shelton. “Here, have a dumpling.”

Shelton regards the bag with a distrustful air, his lip just slightly curled. His eyes slide to Eugene, like he can’t decide whether to press the subject or not, but finally his sweet tooth wins out and he’s snatching it from Eugene’s grasp. “I’m serious.” He mutters, eyes on the little paper bag as he dips a hand inside. “I ain’t nothin’ you wanna get caught up in.”

“To you.” Eugene retorts, watching Shelton stuff an entire dumpling in his mouth in one go. It’s grossly endearing, and he feels a little bit of fight leave him. “I’m a grown man, I think I know what I want and what I don’t.”

“You’re an idiot,” Shelton mumbles, mouth full of sticky rice. He swallows, fingers already in the bag for another as he continues. “If you think I’m what you need to cure that wartime loneliness of yours.”

Eugene feels like a saint for letting him eat up his sweets while he’s fighting him like this. If Shelton wasn’t always looking so skinny he certainly wouldn’t be humouring him. “’S that what your boy was?” He asks. “Just wartime loneliness?”

The look Shelton shoots him is withering. His hand lays lax in his lap, shiny with the stickiness of the dumplings, and Eugene focuses on that instead of his face or he knows he’ll buckle. Shelton’s tone has a certain sharpness that Eugene has never heard before from him; something wounded and deep down angry about it. “No.” His eyes are like chips of ice when Eugene glances back up. The warm breeze and the low, late afternoon light seem an antithesis for the frost in Shelton’s voice. “He wasn’t.”

“Then why do you assume that’s what it is for me?” He asks, beginning to get frustrated with Shelton’s cagey, inconsistent reasoning. “Shelton, you ain’t makin’ any sense. If it’s me you don’t want, you just gotta-”

“I knew him from gettin’ banged up.” Shelton interrupted, shortly. Leyden’s long ago, throwaway comment suddenly makes perfect sense, understanding clicking into place in Eugene’s head. _Roommate_ , bare grief in his voice. More like cellmate. “Okay? I knew him before all this.”

With that admittance, the fight leaves Eugene’s body a little. He lets his shoulders slump, nails finding his cuticles again as he relaxes back into his nerves. “Fine.” He murmurs, eyes off on the distant barracks, on a few guys playing a chaotic game of soccer. “I ain’t gonna fight you on it.”

Silently, Shelton passes him back the bag of dumplings, which Eugene snatches from him. To his surprise, Shelton doesn’t immediately stand, doesn’t flee the scene like he’s done before, that time after the firefight when he’d been manic on uppers and bloodlust. When Eugene risks a glance his way, Shelton’s licking the stickiness off his fingers, expression pensive.

“They’re good.” He says, out of the blue. Eugene tries his hardest not to make an exasperated noise. “The dumplings. What are they?”

“Dunno.” He says, shortly. “Nickel a bag.”

The tree murmurs above them, the breeze carrying the sounds of the ragtag game of soccer happening a few hundred yards away. Someone yells, _fuck_ , and Shelton snorts. The corner of his mouth lifts, and Eugene does his best to hold onto the frustration that is rapidly cooling within him. “Do you want another?” He asks, and the two of them sit in silence as Shelton eats one, and then another, picking through the paper for the last few grains of rice.

“I like it when you fight me on shit.” Shelton says, eventually, wiping his hands on his dirty dungarees. Eugene wrinkles his nose at the action. “’S refreshin’. You don’t look like you have it in you.” He’s sprawled out like a cat again, that stony, cold anger seemingly forgotten. Eugene supposes Shelton is nothing if not easily distracted. When his anger flares, it’s all consuming, impossible to avoid, but short lived like like the flame of a match. A short, bright ball of fire into nothing, faster than the average mind can keep up with. It’s not the first time Eugene has found himself scrambling to switch gears with Shelton, and he knows very well that it won’t be the last.

Fear of beating a dead horse keep Eugene’s questions buttoned up inside him, far too aware that with every inch Shelton gives, he steps a mile back. He wants so badly to ask if Shelton feels the same affection he does, if he occupies such a big chunk of Shelton’s mind as he does in Eugene’s. Be it wartime loneliness or not, Eugene yearns for Shelton like he’s never felt before. It’s new, and it’s exciting, and Vietnam feels so loose and lawless that he almost feels _right_ to feel those things. It isn’t Alabama, it isn’t under the eyes of the people he knows. The nearest thing to family out in Vietnam is the knowledge that his childhood best friend is serving too. It feels a little now or never, which Eugene is doing his hardest to ignore.

Instead, he says, “Shelton,” and he looks up, eyes wide and sweetly curious in his face. Eugene props his cheek on his hand, gaze on Shelton as he continues, “I ain’t goin’ nowhere. No matter how much you try and convince me to.”

He watches Shelton’s throat bob as he swallows, expression wide open and vulnerable for a long, dragging moment. Eugene drinks it in, his bright eyes, his parted lips, the way his curls have dried wild and stiff with sweat. “Prove it.” He says, finally, and a sardonic little smile tips his mouth as he manages to reign his expression in. Eugene can’t help but think he finally looks his age in that moment, the war and the hard years of his life hitching age onto his face. Age that doesn’t exist with his walls down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! and please, lemme know what u think! i love talking to people about fic, and about sledgefu, and uploading chapters to radio silence is SO super discouraging!! :-( 
> 
> oh and apologies for the funny cut off to the chapter AGAIN lmao, i keep writing chapters that are like 9k words, and don't wanna dump it all at once. and a reminder, i'm doing double updates now! so saturdays and wednesdays :^)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'd recommend maybe having a glance over the last chapter just to set the tone and the feelings right in your head :~) sadly i had to cut this whole scene up awkwardly, so it carries on immediately from the last chapter's end

They say no more; the two of them whiling away the evening under that tree together in near-silence. The sun sags low and heavy in the sky, turning all it touches a fierce, burning orange-yellow. Eugene lies back and watches Shelton by the light of it; the other man is engrossed in doodling on the cardboard of his cigarettes with Eugene’s pencil, unaware of the weight of his gaze. The setting sun picks him out in shades of gold, his curls haloing his head with it, molten just at the tips. Eugene wishes time would slow, that he could bottle up this moment to live in for the rest of his life. The late evening noise of camp, a low murmur of voices and various radios, the occasional yelp of laughter carried by the gentle breeze that ruffles the curls on Shelton’s head and plays with the leaves above them. Hot ground and the silt smell of the river, Shelton’s ever present insect spray; Eugene wants to bathe in it. Roll around in the mere image of Shelton; his brown, wiry forearms, the hair that peeks from the yellowed armpits of his undersized white tee when he lifts his arms to stretch, the way the waning sunlight kisses all the high points of his face gold. The tip of his nose, the big wedge of it, his cheekbones, the gentle slope of his mouth.

Shelton catches him staring, and Eugene watches his eyes flick down to Eugene’s mouth, and stay there. He daren’t even breathe.

“I’d kiss you.” Shelton murmurs, eyes wandering back up to meet Eugene’s. There’s something veiled and sad in them, something close to regret. Eugene’s heart is beating double time; his fingertips feel numb, hands curled loose in his lap lest he grab every inch of Shelton he can. “If this was anywhere else.”

“Well it ain’t.” Eugene replies, watching Shelton’s face closely for any flicker in his stony expression. There is none, so Eugene looks away, down at his sore cuticles as he mutters, “I know you’ve been lookin’ out for me this whole time. If you wanna leave it just like that, suit yourself, but I don’t think that’s what you want.”

Shelton doesn’t reply straight away, and Eugene keeps his head ducked, not wanting to see his reaction to his words. The thought of nothing coming of the two of them is painful, and Eugene isn’t sure he’d be able to return to their old dynamic after last night, after this long, meandering conversation. God, and to think his biggest concern about coming to war as a gay man was that someone would find out. Eugene had never factored falling for a fellow Marine into his anxieties.

The sun is getting lower, now. The sky streaks through with red and pink, glinting orange off of Shelton’s dog tags as he leans forward and braces his elbows on his knees with a sigh. The tags swing forward into empty space, that all-too familiar rattle. A killer dog with a little cat’s bell. “Gene.” Shelton says, eyes heavy lidded as they roam over Eugene’s face. He tips his chin up. “You don’t know what I want.”

Anticipation clutches at Eugene’s lungs. His mouth is dry when he replies, “I think I do.” Shelton’s gaze is hypnotising, all-consuming. Everything fades into the background; the game of soccer that is winding down nearby, the rising clamour of the mess hall and the distant bustle of the busy city. Anything that isn’t _him_. Eugene can barely believe there’s a war going on, in some not-too-distant jungle, or rice paddy, down into the deltas the river flows into. The world is the size of a head of a pin, washed the colours of the setting sun. Shelton is too beautiful by the dying light, so beautiful that Eugene is reminded of the beauty of poisonous snakes, bugs. _Don’t touch_.

Shelton sways closer, teeth sunk into his full, lower lip as his eyes flick back to Eugene’s mouth. “What do you think I want?” He breathes, and they’re both guilty of how oblivious they are to the rest of their unfriendly, unfit world in that moment.

Eugene moves with the same sort of atom-deep, basic urge that animals must operate on. He knows no language, no sense of anything but that he wants to feel Shelton’s skin against his own, wants to sink his teeth in and never let go. He gets as far as his fist coming up to clutch in the front of Shelton’s teasing, mocking shrunken tee, his forehead knocking against Shelton’s, their noses bumping, before the world seems to rush back at them in unison. He freezes, and Shelton’s hand slides from his knee to his thigh, palm hot to skin even through his thick dungarees. Eugene’s fingers flex in the soft cotton of his shirt in response, dragging Shelton closer by just a hair’s breadth, enough to have him exhaling anticipatory against Eugene’s cheek.

“I think _you_ know what you want.” Eugene breathes, shifting his head slightly so his lips just brush against the high arch of Shelton’s cheekbone. His voice in his ear. Shelton shivers, his fingers tightening imperceptibly on Eugene’s thigh. He nudges his mouth closer to Shelton’s ear. “You have to say it.”

“Why’d you stop.” Shelton murmurs, like the two of them aren’t wrapped up so close they’re sharing the same air, the same body heat, in part view of the barracks. Eugene becomes aware he’s sweating under his shirt, and when he licks his lips, he tastes salt. Shelton’s sweat, his sweat. There’s no line between them, anymore.

The tree whispers above them, and Eugene moves his hand from where it is fisted in the fabric of Shelton’s shirt to curve solid against the nape of his neck. At the touch, Shelton goes loose, and Eugene can feel his fingertips digging into his thigh as he scratches his nails through the buzzed close hair at the nape of Shelton’s neck. “Ask.” He murmurs, feeling hazily disconnected from himself as he feels Shelton’s hand slide up his back, and cling hold of the sweat-damp fabric between his shoulder blades.

“You’re such a goddamn tease.” Shelton murmurs fiercely, pressing his forehead against Eugene’s as his grip tightens in Eugene’s shirt. “Please.”

It’s enough, and Eugene finds himself lurching forward on that same primal, wordless urge as before, clutching Shelton close as he digs his thumbs into the hollows of his jaw and covers his mouth with his own. Shelton makes a half-helpless noise at the contact, surging forward so hard against Eugene that he almost knocks him off balance, his mouth biting and eager against Eugene’s as he kisses him hard and breathless. Eugene lets him, far too wrapped up in the musk of Shelton’s sweat, the stink of the mosquito repellant, his tangled curls under his clutching fingers. He swipes his thumb over the curve of Shelton’s cheekbone, smears sweat in his path, and Shelton melts with the touch.

“Genie.” He breathes, kiss-drunk and loose against Eugene’s front as they break away from each other. His face is flushed so red it’s visible under his summer browned skin, eyelids heavy and smile stretching stupid and dazed across his sweaty face. “C’mere.”

Eugene sways into him, the magnetic pull of those dopey, misty grey eyes. He kisses him again, softer this time, hand coming up to cup his jaw like he’s made of glass. “Is that what you wanted?” He murmurs against Shelton’s lips, coaxing him that millimetre closer so he can catch his lips in another long, slow kiss. Shelton whines in the back of his throat, as vulnerable and open as Eugene has ever seen him.

“More than.” He mutters, once Eugene lets him go. He laughs, then, throwing a hand over his face as he falls backwards onto the dry ground. “More than!”

Shelton’s good mood is desperately addictive, and Eugene finds himself grinning too, so wide his cheeks begin to hurt and he leans forward to smack Shelton’s bicep. “Cut it out, ya moron.”

Shelton drops the hand over his eyes down to his mouth, and there’s such true wonderment and affection in his gaze that Eugene feels himself flushing under the weight of it. “Jesus, Gene, you don’t look like you got that in you.” Eugene can tell he’s still grinning even though his mouth is covered; his eyes crinkled from it, the apples of his cheeks high and rosy.

“Got _what_.” Eugene asks, dry, a smile still pulling at his mouth so matter how hard he tries to reign it in. His lips feel full and tender from kissing, from Shelton’s nipping little bites. Electricity thrums down to his fingertips, to his toes, zinging through him on a constant feedback loop. For that long, breathless handful of minutes he was kissing Shelton, nothing else mattered in the world. The war was nothing, not a blip on his radar. Not the men he’d killed, not the friends he’d watched die, not the bomb blasted villages or the protestors back home. He wanted to live forever in that tiny, iridescent little bubble of brainless happiness and pleasure. Just his hands in Shelton’s precious, dark curls. His nose full of the smell of him, his kisses burning and heavy against his lips.

“Got whatever it takes to get me this _hard_.” Shelton says, smugly, grabbing at the front of his fatigues for show before throwing his arms back behind his head. Eugene snorts and glances away, checking that they hadn’t drawn attention.

“Don’t be crude.” He murmurs, mind far off someplace where all he knows are sweet kisses and Shelton’s small, warm body against his own. The two of them share a long, lagging moment of pure silence, both their eyes on the dying sun meeting the horizon, on the early nighttime sky streaked with deep red. Then Eugene feels Shelton’s fingers at his wrist, and a glance behind him sends electricity zapping through his stomach again. Shelton, his curls rumpled and wild in a dark halo around his face, his t-shirt riding high over his hips, eyes big and deep green in the light of the setting sun.

“Come lie down.” He says, quiet, his fingers tightening around Eugene’s wrist and tugging. Eugene goes, helpless to do anything but obey. 

The grass is dry and spiky through his clothes, but all that is forgotten as Shelton rolls over to cup Eugene’s cheek and kiss him again. Slow and filthy, his tongue darting out to taste Eugene’s mouth. He can’t help the moan that rumbles through him, especially when Shelton brings a hand to his throat, sliding his thumb across his adam’s apple with _just_ the right pressure. 

“I want you to fuck me.” Shelton breathes, drawing back just enough so that Eugene can see the heat in his hooded eyes. He distinctly feels his heart stutter at those words, his stomach twisting with arousal.

“You were just tellin’ me to leave you well alone.” He murmurs, still enough of himself to argue, it seems. Shelton’s dirty kisses, his dirtier words, can’t rob him of that.

“I know a whorehouse who’ll rent us a room.” Shelton continues, ignoring Eugene entirely. There’s a spark of aroused mischief in his eyes, just there in the curl of his smile. “Just us.”

The thought sends equal waves of heat and anxiety through him. The fear of getting _caught_. “Are you sure it’s safe?” He asks, and Shelton smiles, hand coming up to tap out an idle little tattoo against Eugene’s cheek.

“What,” He asks, faux-coy, looking up at Eugene from under his lashes. “You don’t want my ass?”

“Jesus,” Eugene mumbles, covering his face with his hands as Shelton breaks into laughter. He rolls onto his back, a grin curving his lips despite himself, infected by Shelton’s wildly amused laughing. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Think about it.” Shelton says, after he has recovered from laughing at Eugene. He pokes his finger to the middle of Eugene’s chest, propped up over him as he is. “I want it. I want you, and not in some fucking alley or in the shower block late at night.”

“You goddamn romantic.” Eugene teases, grasping Shelton’s wrist as he tries to move away. “Fuckin’ Byron himself. Sex in a whore’s bed ain’t anything I’d pay for.”

“Not even sex with _me_ in a whore’s bed?” Shelton asks, and despite himself, Eugene finds himself torn. Never would he have even _considered_ visiting a whorehouse, but Shelton is raising all sorts of new and unknown parts of him. 

“Lemme think on it.” He says, and rolls his eyes at Shelton’s pout. “And you should to! Not an hour ago you were warning me off you.”

“So what?”

“ _So_ , it’s pretty fast.”

Shelton gives him a look which makes Eugene feel all of an inch tall. “You think we’ve got _time?_ ” He asks. The easy condescension in his voice stings.

“No, I just-” He’s right, even if Eugene doesn’t want to admit it. He wants to live inside that romantic little bubble of a perfect world for a little longer, wants to stave off reality for at least another night. “Lemme think about it, okay?”

Shelton cuts his eyes away, sulky. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Eugene echoes, and releases Shelton’s wrist, the conversation on pause for now.

They stroll back to the camp in easy silence, and Eugene sits through dinner in the loud mess hall in a near daze. It doesn’t make sense that something so heavy and taboo and gorgeous happened such a few hundred feet from the edge of camp. Every time he catches Shelton’s gaze from across the table, the feeling of his mouth comes flooding back to him. Hot, pressing kisses, his hands clutching tight against him. It leaves him staring red faced into his food for most of dinnertime, and his quietness at dinner concerns Burgie into badgering him for a game of cards, a quiet break from the rest of the company. Eugene takes him up on it simply because he has such a hard time saying no to Burgie’s honest, blue-eyed face. Shelton joins them, as he seems to be having a hard time not clinging to Eugene’s side tonight. 

“So we’re movin’ out in a couple days.” Burgie mutters, attention more on his hand of cards than on how Shelton keeps inching closer and closer to Eugene. The two of them are sat crammed together on Eugene’s rack, while Burgie lounges across the whole of Shelton’s. “Monday, maybe Tuesday if the higher-highers can’t get their asses in order.” He lays a card down, oblivious to the way Shelton has suddenly tensed up against Eugene’s side.

“Where’re we headin’ out to?” Eugene asks, pressing his elbow to Shelton’s side in a silent attempt to remind him to relax. 

“Oh, same old, same old.” Burgie mutters, “No one knows for sure, but I’ve got money ridin’ on the Delta.” Shelton sucks his teeth at that news, and Burgie inclines his head. “Maybe.”

They finish the game with only minimal losses from Shelton’s rapidly depleting store of real American money. It’s after Burgie retires to his own rack that Eugene takes the chance to catch Shelton by his elbow, and lean in close to murmur. “I’ve made up my mind.”

Shelton doesn’t say a word, just raises his eyebrows in question. Eugene purses his lips at him, scowling.

“So yes.” He says. “Yes, to all of it.”

Their impending orders to saddle up and move out have lit the same kind of urgency within him that he’d seen in Shelton earlier in the day. He understands it now, and feels slightly foolish for even having ideas about dragging this out as long as he wanted. 

“You sure?” Shelton says, and when Eugene nods he shrugs, half turning towards his bed as group of Marines tramp by them. “Meet me tomorrow, out by the bar. Noon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! my bad on not updating yesterday, it completely slipped my mind because i was concentrating all day on hitting 50k for nanowrimo early lmao (and i did it, so that's good news! this fic is 50k and still not finished) but i hope this chapter makes up for its lateness!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is about to be 7000 words of porn. settle in

“‘S far too goddamn early to be goin’ to a whorehouse.” Eugene mutters, walking fast to keep up with Shelton’s quick, sure strides through the afternoon crowds in the city. He’s had his head ducked low since they’d entered the red light district, feeling far too conspicuous in his olive drab with a knife strapped to his belt. As if his mother would somehow know he was even setting foot in a brothel, whether he was going for the bar girls or not.

“Best time to go.” Shelton replies, shooting a grin over his shoulder at Eugene, who is lagging behind. “Nice an’ quiet. Nobody’s gonna see us, and we ain’t gonna see nobody. This ain’t a place kept by the ARVN neither, so we’ll be safe.”

“Are they even gonna be _open?_.” Eugene complains, to which Shelton shoots him a disparaging look.

“Didn’t take you for a cherry, Gene.”

“Not bein’ a whorehouse _regular_ don’t make me a cherry, Shelton.”

They’re practically stopped in the street they’re walking so slow, now; busier, more upstanding people moving past them like they’re a couple slow moving rocks battling against the riptide. Shelton smiles, barely more than a curl of his lip. “Let’s not fight.” He murmurs, voice saccharine sweet. Eugene is about to call it quits and relent when his smile widens and he bites out, “Cherry.” Eugene smacks his bicep with the back of his hand, grinning as Shelton lets out a strangled noise that is half laughter, half yelp of surprise, clutching at his arm in mock-pain. “Ow!”

“Let’s not fight.” Eugene parrots, biting the inside of his cheek to keep his laughter in as Shelton bares his teeth at him. “C’mon, don’t make us Marines look bad.”

“Done enough’a that without you beatin’ on me in the street.” Shelton retorts, but his mood is good enough that he reaches up to tousle Eugene’s hair into disarray, grinning. It alleviates Eugene’s anxiety a little; makes this whole adventure feel a little less scary and daunting and _idiotic_. 

Shelton had reassured him that the place was safe for it, and that it’d all go smooth and happy if they had the money and then some. Despite Eugene’s fears about it, he’s excited. He’d barely been able to sleep the night before, ears tuned to every shift and creak from Shelton’s rack as the other man slept. He couldn’t quite believe that within a few short hours he would be alone with him; properly alone. Not half-hidden from the barracks a few hundred feet away. Not alone in a sea of people, or stuffed into a dim little corner in a loud local bar. The thought alone is enough to make Eugene feel hot and prickly all over, aroused and wanting to the point of distraction. After the long months of stolen glances, and secretive, half-embarrassed fixation, Eugene is finally about to have Shelton all to himself. The thought is dizzying. 

He wouldn’t be able to return to the jungle without this. The want would eat him alive.

From the outside, the place looks the picture of a modest apartment. The only thing that sets it apart from the houses on either side was the closed curtains, and the bored, heavily made up girls lingering outside smoking. None of them give Eugene and Shelton a second glance as they enter the place, which makes Eugene wonder if they can _tell_. He lowers his eyes as he passes them, embarrassed under their indifferent gazes. 

The interior is no more inoffensive as the outside; white-washed walls freckled with damp stains, a boxy old radio jangling out music from the fifties, old linoleum under their boots. A dated orange couch is backed up against one wall, and on it sits a girl who does her best to bat her lashes alluringly at them until she notices Shelton touch Eugene’s wrist to get his attention. One heavily pencilled eyebrow arches, and then her eyes flick away as she snaps her gum. Eugene tears his eyes away, only half-listening to Shelton bartering with the madam of the house in an incomprehensible mix of English and awful pidgin Vietnamese. Woody Guthrie is playing over the radio, which feels so absurd that Eugene tunes back into Shelton’s conversation just to avoid the sensory memory of handling his mother’s copy of _Dust Bowl Ballads_ as a child. 

He’s distracted by Shelton’s hand tapping his side, and he furrows his brow to listen as Shelton gives him an expectant look and says, “C’mon, Gene, the money.”

Twenty dollars exchanges hands, and then another small, heavily made up woman slips out of some hidden room and is leading them upstairs before Eugene can even really process it. Shelton takes the stairs two at a time, obviously comfortable, obviously excited. Eugene has so much anxiety and arousal pooling in his gut that he can’t quite separate the two, and hasn’t been able to for quite some time. The stairs creak under their weight, the carpet threadbare in the centre from so many pairs of boots tramping up and down them. When Eugene puts his hand to the rail to steady himself as they reach the first floor, it’s worn smooth from countless hands. 

“One hour.” The woman says, as she unlocks a door seemingly at random from the half dozen closed tight doors along the hall. The smell of incense wafts out, heavy and sweet. Shelton is grinning over the woman’s shoulder at him, expression tugged between amused and mocking.

“Oh, sure.” Eugene mutters, quickly. “Cool.”

“Don’t break anything.” She adds, which leads Eugene to believe that she is far more au fait with the American military stationed at her doorstep than he perhaps gives the Vietnamese in Saigon credit for. He nods, mutters another, “Sure,” and she leaves without a second glance at them. 

Eugene gives Shelton a sheepish look, the two of them lingering outside the room. Shelton rolls his eyes and gives him a little nudge over the threshold, his hands settling on Eugene’s hips as he steers him into the room.

“Nothin’ to be afraid of, boo.” He says, and his tone is amused when he asks, “You really never been to a whorehouse before, huh?”

“Obviously not.” Eugene mutters, hearing Shelton close the door behind them as he gives the room a once over. It’s thankfully clean and tidy; a checkerboard linoleum floor on which a faded, threadbare rug has been thrown, a low, flimsy looking bed heaped with bright pillows and a thin sheet, various items of furniture and a narrow window covered with a gauzy orange scarf. That, and the dim bedside lamp, give the room a warm, comfortable glow. A ceiling fan beats lazily above them, doing little more than shifting the hot air around. He finds himself relax a little, his shoulders loosening just as Shelton slides his hands up his arms, pressing his small body to his back. 

“You a virgin?” He murmurs, hands sliding around Eugene’s waist to begin pulling his shirt from the waistband of his pants. Eugene watches him, his big hands flat against the pale skin of Eugene’s lower stomach. His blood is rushing so hard in his ears he can barely focus.

“No.” 

Shelton presses his forehead to the nape of Eugene’s neck, pushing his fingertips under the waistband of Eugene’s fatigues as he presses a kiss to the top of his spine. “You ever have sex with a man?” He asks.

“Yes.” Eugene replies, voice steadier. Then, “Kiss me?”

Shelton is smiling when Eugene turns to him, his eyes hooded as he reaches up to cup Eugene’s face, to pull him down to kiss him. The only sounds are their breathing, the sound of boots on lino as Shelton pushes forward a step, his hands tightening in Eugene’s hair as the intensity kicks up a notch between them. He rolls his tongue over Eugene’s bottom lip, moaning into his mouth as Eugene grabs at his hips and pulls him even closer. He can feel Shelton hard against his thigh, and the knowledge that this is for _him_ , because of him, has Eugene thickening in his pants just the same. 

It’s been so long that Eugene feels he could get off from this kissing, from the way Shelton’s bony hip keeps passing over the hard line of Eugene’s cock as he rubs his own against Eugene’s thigh. Just from Shelton’s tongue in his mouth, his fingernails in his scalp and his body warm and solid against his chest. He’s eager, endearing, tugging and pulling at Eugene until the back of Shelton's knees hit the bed frame and he sits down heavily, hands immediately going to Eugene’s hips to draw him closer.

“Shit, Merriell.” Eugene’s mouth wraps unfamiliar around Shelton’s given name, staring down at his dark head of hair as he presses his face to Eugene’s stomach. Shelton laughs at the name, and then bites down lightly on the soft part of Eugene’s belly, right below his navel. Eugene jumps at the contact, and slides his hands home in Shelton’s curls. 

“Ain’t heard that name in a while.” He murmurs, lips pressed close to Eugene’s stomach, just above the buckle of his belt. Shelton’s hand comes up to palm at the hard shape of Eugene through his pants, and laughs again as his knees near buckle at the contact. “Long time?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” Eugene murmurs, voice catching low and rough in his throat as he tugs at Shelton’s curls. The fan beats quietly above them. Eugene can feel the sweat beading his brow, his lower back, and can see the same on Shelton. It makes him want him even more, spread out and sweat slick under him until all Eugene knows is the taste of his sweat, the smell of it in his nose. 

Shelton tips his head back, teeth worrying at his kissed-red lower lip, something impish and teasing in his gaze. Eugene tugs again at his hair, making him tip his head back further until his eyes flutter half-shut and his mouth drops open. “Are you gonna fuck me?” He asks, green eyes burning through the low, intimate light of the room. The heavy hanging incense in the air is making Eugene’s mind feel cloudy, dreamy. He tightens his hold.

“Are you gonna blow me?” He counters, and Shelton’s mouth curves into a pleased, hazy grin. He licks his lips, chapped from the heat, that sensual, generous mouth. Eugene has lost count of the amount of times he’s fantasised about being inside of it, always when Shelton is talking out his ass and all Eugene wants to do his shut him up.

“I thought you’d never ask.” He murmurs, and squeezes Eugene’s thighs once before he begins to work at Eugene’s belt, the button fly of his pants. Eugene decides he likes the sight of him like that; legs spread around Eugene’s, fatigues bunched tight on his thighs, his face at Eugene’s crotch.

He barely pulls Eugene’s pants down at all, too eager to pull Eugene’s cock through the slit in his underwear and get his hands on him. The first touch of his warm, callused palm is electrifying, and he pumps it a couple times until Eugene is fully hard and clutching at his hair, before he licks his lips once and presses a wet kiss to the head of it. Eugene groans, and Shelton’s answering grin is devilish. 

“Don’t be scared to go rough on me.” He says, like Eugene isn’t so far out of practice that he’s at risk of coming down Shelton’s throat the minute he puts his mouth on him. “Fuck my face, pull my hair, any of it.”

“Noted.” Eugene says, feeling distinctly dishevelled as Shelton purses his lips at him, playful. He’s in more of a good mood than Eugene has ever seen him, and a strong wave of affection rises in him at that. “Just smack me if you don’t like it.” He adds, and Shelton rolls his eyes at that. 

When he finally swallows him down, Eugene can do nothing but tip his head back and moan, eyes squeezed shut as Shelton takes him as far as he can before pulling off a little, sucking slow at the head of his cock. He knows if he were to glance down and look, he would come. The mental image is bad enough; the picture of Shelton with his lips red and stretched around the length of him is enough to have him twitching his hips forward into Shelton’s face, using his hair as an anchor as he fills up his mouth.

He becomes very familiar with the pattern of water marks on the ceiling as Shelton sucks on him, mouth hanging open as he pants heavy under the feeling of his slick, sure mouth. He nudges forward a little, testing how far Shelton can bend, and then a little further when Shelton’s hand comes up to squeeze his ass. The heat of his throat his all consuming, and Eugene lets out a low groan as he feels Shelton swallow around him.

“Fuck.” He breathes, unable to keep it in anymore, unable to keep quiet. Shelton hums in reply, sounding as smug as a man can with a cock halfway down his throat. Eugene risks a glance down, and moans at the sight below him. 

Shelton’s eyes are heavy lidded and dark in his face, trained on Eugene’s face with a single minded intensity that reminds Eugene of Shelton after the Dexedrine. On reflex, Eugene pulls him closer with his hand on the back of his head, watching as Shelton opens his mouth to take him deep. His nose is pressed to Eugene’s pelvis, and Eugene holds him there for a long, dragging moment as he watches him blink away tears, his throat tightening around him, and then he draws away and Shelton sucks in a breath, eyes dropping closed as his tongue curls on the head of Eugene’s cock. 

There’s something soft and submissive in the way he opens up willingly as Eugene pushes forward into his mouth again, something that makes Eugene just want to tip his face back and fuck his mouth in earnest. He’s never experienced someone so unfazed by a cock in their throat, and it’s as arousing as it is baffling. 

He drops his hand to curve against Shelton’s jaw, that affection strangling him again as Shelton tilts his face into the touch, eyes opening and lifting until he meets Eugene’s gaze. “You’re so fucking gorgeous.” Eugene murmurs, and Shelton’s eyelids dip and his cheeks hollow as he takes him deep again. Eugene presses his thumb to the corner of Shelton’s mouth, and has to tip his head away again at the flood of arousal that feeling his lips stretched around Eugene conjures in him. 

Shelton settles into a comfortable rhythm as Eugene clutches at his curls and counts the marks in the ceiling; anything to keep him from coming down Shelton’s throat before their time has even begun. He lets Shelton bob his head on him until he’s shivering with how turned on he is, how close he feels, how good Shelton is around him. A touch to his shoulder has Shelton moving away, and he presses his wrist dainty to his mouth as Eugene grips his chin hard between his fingers, tilting his face up. They share a long, silent look, and then Eugene is releasing him, and Shelton ducks his head to begin fumbling with the lacing on his boots. 

“Lemme help.” Eugene mutters, voice raspy in his throat. He falls to his knees, and then it’s the two of them struggling with Shelton’s laces. They’re knotty, worn, and Eugene gives up after a second of tugging with a noise of exasperation. “Shelton, really?”

Shelton gives him a sheepish look, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, and then Eugene is laughing, pressing his forehead to Shelton’s knee as the pressure dissipates between them. 

“Just pull on ‘em.” Shelton cries, flopping back onto the bed with a groan as Eugene hefts his foot and _pulls_. He’s laughing so hard that he’s weak with it, and presses his wrist to his eyes to smear tears and sweat across his face. Shelton cracks up too, putting his hands over his face as Eugene tugs ineffectually again. “C’mon, Marine. Put your back into it.”

The boots come off after a few minutes of struggling, but Eugene is glad for the interruption. He feels buoyed by their laughter, happy and close to Shelton as he cups his face in his hands and kisses him. “Tryna make me come too quick, huh?” He mumbles, forehead pressed to Shelton’s as the other man makes quick work of the buttons on his shirt, pushing it off his shoulders so he can splay his hands flat against Eugene’s chest. 

“That’s on you.” Shelton mutters, eyes intense on Eugene’s face as he passes his thumb over his nipple, watching his reaction. “I would’ve been mad as hell, though.” His fingers hook in Eugene’s dog tags, resting there. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Shelton’s smile is toothy. “I mean what I said about gettin’ fucked.”

Eugene feels those words electric right in the pit of his stomach, the expression on Shelton’s going straight to his cock. He presses his thumb to Shelton’s lips, cherry red and tender, watching as Shelton opens his mouth up and nips lightly at it. 

“Take off your clothes.” He says, voice low, and Shelton’s smile unfurls slow across his face. He steals a quick kiss, and then moves to stand as he pulls his t-shirt over his head. Eugene watches the play of lean muscles in his torso, just under his smooth, sun darkened skin. There’s not an ounce of fat on him; Shelton is all small bird bones and wiry, long muscles, but it turns Eugene on to think of him under him like that. Eugene is not a large man by any stretch of the imagination, and if it came down to it he’d probably have little chance of overpowering Shelton despite his smallness, but the thought of pressing him down into a mattress is overwhelming. 

Shelton stumbles out of his pants, bracing one hand on the dresser as he pulls his underwear off, his socks. He’s as comfortable in his nakedness as always, and Eugene grabs him before he sprawls back out on the bed, presses his face to his bony hip, his hairy stomach, before finally getting his mouth on him.

“Oh a _gentleman_.” Shelton all but purrs, sounding pleased as his hands come to settle in Eugene’s hair. He only lets him suck his cock for a little while, before he’s pulling away and settling himself comfortably on his knees on the mattress. He throws a glance over his shoulder, at Eugene still kneeling hard and struck dumb on the floor, and his eyes are big and dark in his face. He pats the bed next to him, and Eugene scrambles to shed himself of his own pants and to join him on the creaky, narrow bed. 

“There’s Vaseline on the vanity.” Shelton murmurs, and by the time Eugene finds it and rejoins him, he’s stretched out on his back, his hand on his stomach and a smile playing around his lips. “C’mere.”

Eugene comes, leaving the Vaseline in amongst the sheets as he moves to curl up to Shelton’s side. The knowledge that their hour is ticking away is a distant anxiety in his head; he kisses Shelton slow and sweet until he forgets it, until Shelton is sighing against his mouth, hand curled around his cock as he tugs lazily at himself. 

“I haven’t done this in a while.” Eugene admits, sliding his hand up Shelton’s thigh and over his jutting hip bone before settling in the curve of his waist. “I don’t wanna disappoint.” It’s easy to admit his fears now, in this warm, orange-lit room so far from everything else. Now that he’s had just a taste of privacy with Shelton, he doesn’t know how they can go back to the barracks and try and act normal. Sweat is beading on his brow; his hair sticking to it no matter how often he tries to swipe it away. Shelton looks as dishevelled as he feels, his dark curls sticking straight up from his head with the sweat and the heat and from Eugene’s hands in his hair. He grins, and Eugene braces himself for teasing, and is surprised when Shelton just curves his hand sweetly at Eugene’s jaw.

“Don’t be.” He murmurs, and his voice is shot from Eugene’s cock down his throat. The knowledge that Eugene has done that, that he’s about to do much more, sends a shot of heat through him. Shelton’s grin turns filthy as he feels Eugene’s cock twitch against his thigh, and he drops his hand to it, curling around it loosely as he touches him. “I want you bad, Gene.” His hand falls away, and then he’s opening up his legs, spread open on his back like that with one pushed in between Eugene’s. His fingers touch Eugene’s wrist, prompting him. “Finger me.”

Shelton’s an entirely different creature like this. Glowing bronzed and sweaty in the low light, pupils blown wide and cheeks flushed from Eugene’s attentions. Eugene is hopeless to obey. 

The Vaseline is retrieved, and Eugene slicks his fingers as Shelton watches, anticipation clear on his face, in the taut line of his body as Eugene tucks his hand down between his legs, past his balls and up until he finds where Shelton wants him the most. “Easy.” Eugene breathes, pressing his fingers to Shelton’s opening as the other man tucks his face down against Eugene’s sweat-slick throat, choking on a gasp as Eugene pushes into him with little warning. When Eugene risks a glance down his body, he has to press his cock against Shelton’s thigh at the sight he’s met with. Shelton’s short, thick cock, straining hard against his hairy stomach, wet at the tip, and Eugene’s hand pale by comparison, disappearing down between his thighs. 

Shelton’s hand comes to clutch at Eugene’s shoulder, and when his teeth graze Eugene’s adam’s apple, he takes that as his cue to begin curling his fingers inside him in earnest. 

“ _Jesus_.” Shelton moans, spreading his legs wider as his nails dig into the skin of Eugene’s shoulder, who doubles his efforts as he fills him up with another finger, stopping the slow, smooth motions of his hand only to add more Vaseline and push back into him. “Fuck me.” Shelton pants out against his throat, his hand dislodging from Eugene’s shoulder to grip at his inner thigh, spreading himself further for Eugene to work him open. Eugene loses himself to it, for a while. To the sweat slicking their bodies, the heat of Shelton’s body and his voice in Eugene’s ear, urging him _harder, deeper, please-_

“Get a goddamn rubber and fuck me, already.” Shelton gripes, twisting his hips so he can meet Eugene’s fingers before he even thrusts back in. Desperation tinges his tone as Eugene slides his hand across his sweaty chest to pinch at his nipple, just to fuck with him. “ _C’mon_.”

“Figures you’d act a brat even with my fingers in your ass.” 

“Ain’t that the perfect time for it?” Shelton counters, and he’s grinning when Eugene takes his fingers out and props himself up over him for a kiss. “Hey,” He murmurs, quiet and conspiratorial, raising his hand to Eugene’s nape to hold him in place. “You feel good.”

“Didn’t think I had it in me?” Eugene says, parroting Shelton’s words from a day earlier, and he laughs at that, giddy and pleased. Eugene feels the same, breathless and stupid with anticipation and affection. His cock throbs heavy between his legs, and he rolls his hips forward against Shelton’s thigh, leaning in close for another kiss. Shelton’s hand settles on his ass, pulling Eugene into him as they exchange slow, heated kisses until he’s making small, soft noises against Eugene’s mouth. 

It’s easy to push him onto his stomach, hand between his shoulder blades until he’s arching his ass up against Eugene’s hips, against the hard line of his cock. He’d found a near mountain of rubbers stashed in the side table, and he rolls one on slowly as he makes Shelton wait for it, his face propped on his folded arms as he sways his ass teasingly. Eugene can just make out the smirk on his face, almost hidden behind his bicep as he eyes Eugene up from below.

“Lemme see you.” Eugene murmurs, pressing his cock against Shelton’s ass just enough to tease, but not enough to open him up. At that, Shelton huffs, like he’s amused, impatient, but he does what Eugene says and props his chin up, looks back at Eugene with his cheek pressed to his shoulder. He’s almost too gorgeous to stand, his dark curls and his bronzed skin, that careless little smile he’s trying to hide behind a pout.

“C’mon, then.” He says, voice rough. “Don’t tease me, boo.” He drops his temple to his arms, and there’s something turned on and challenging in his eyes that are still trained on Eugene’s face.

The fan is beating above their head softly, near-silently. Eugene watches the play of light across Shelton’s sweet, handsome face as he pushes forward, slow into where Shelton is slick and waiting for him. He moans, mouth dropping often and brow crumpling as he moves back on Eugene’s cock, screwing his eyes shut as Eugene presses into him.

“ _Jesus_ ,” He hisses, back arching as Eugene bottoms out in him, pressing his thumbs to his lower back to steady him. “You felt smaller in my mouth, cher.” Eugene makes a concerned noise, and before he can even offer to pull out, Shelton is throwing a hand back to clumsily grasp hold of his wrist, shaking his head. “No, it’s good. You feel so good.” 

He drops his forehead to his arms, and Eugene rubs a hand down his back, through the sweat springing up on his skin. He feels incredible, tight and hot around Eugene, so good that it’s taking all his willpower not to fuck right into him. It’s been so long that Eugene feels dazed from the feeling, from the incense hanging in the air, the taste of salt on his lips when he ducks his head to press a kiss to the middle of Shelton’s back. 

“You feel so fuckin’ good around me.” He murmurs, straightening back up. Shelton’s hands clutch ineffectually at the thin sheets, and Eugene feels him tighten up around him at the movement. The pain is ebbing from what little of Shelton’s face that Eugene can see; steadily being replaced by pleasure as Eugene rocks into him, experimentally. He makes a noise in the back of his throat that’s practically a whine, and on the next movement of Eugene’s hips, he follows, fucking himself back on Eugene’s cock with a sharp gasp of pleasure.

“Oh,” He murmurs, voice dreamy and loose, deep and low in his chest. “That’s _good_.”

They take it slow, Eugene rolling his hips slow and deep until Shelton resurfaces from his head down position, bracing himself on his hands as he moans and presses his ass back against Eugene’s movements. Eugene watches the play of muscles in his back , hands skimming over them all before settling hard in the meat of his ass, pulling him back on his cock in one smooth movement. Shelton makes a noise like all the air has been punched out of him, so Eugene does it again, and again, until Shelton is fucking himself back on him desperately, a constant litany of moans and curses and half-baked sentences tumbling from his mouth. 

“Fuck me _up._ ” He chokes, and there’s a needy edge to his tone that’s Eugene’s never heard before, and it’s more than enough to have him grabbing Shelton around his small, tight waist to begin pounding into him like he’s been wanting to since he’d first pushed into him. “ _Yes._ ” Shelton bites out, letting the force of Eugene’s thrusts force his face back into the mattress, one hand coming back to tug at his cock, where it’s hanging hard and heavy between his thighs. 

The bed is creaking under them with the intensity in which Eugene’s rutting into Shelton’s slick hole, and he pulls out for a long, breathless second as he grabs at the jut of Shelton’s hip and says, “Turn over, wanna see you.”

Shelton scrambles, all knees and elbows, and Eugene barely has time to laugh at him before he’s grabbing at Eugene’s ass and pulling him close until Eugene sinks back into him. Shelton’s mouth splits in a grin as he closes his eyes and tips his head back against the mattress, blissful under the hard press of Eugene’s cock and his hand pressed firm to Shelton’s sternum. “Beautiful.” Eugene murmurs, hips pressed flush to Shelton’s ass as he runs his hand from his chest and over his throat to rest comfortable against Shelton’s cheek. His grin widens, and he throws his arms over his head as he tilts his face into Eugene’s touch, eyes opening just far enough to spear Eugene with that green eyed gaze. 

“Time’s tickin’.” He murmurs, and his grin turns smug when Eugene’s thumb curves over his chin to press against the side of his throat. Not hard, just hard enough for him to feel it when Eugene starts moving inside him again, less frantic than he’d had him on his knees. A slow, deep slide that has Eugene pressed so close to Shelton that he can feel sweat starting to spring up between them. The fan beating above them does nothing to cool them down, but Eugene likes how Shelton looks drenched in sweat besides, his eyes drifting back in his head as Eugene fucks him just in the right spot, his adam’s apple bobbing under Eugene’s hand gripping tight around his throat. 

It feels good to hold him in place like that. To have him breathless and speechless and without that rigid, cruel mask he ties on so tight. Eugene can feel that particular narrowing of time he had felt when Shelton had kissed him; the focusing of the world down to the eye of a needle. It’s them, only them, their bodies twined together and this hot, orange drenched little room in a city destined to fall. The clutch of Shelton’s body and the way he arches up with a moan as Eugene dips his head to taste the sweat on his chest, to pass his tongue over his brown nipples and watch them harden in his wake. The control he feels over Shelton’s body is dizzying, the sort of power Eugene has little idea how to wield. All he can do is fuck him so right that he swears Shelton is blinking away tears, but salt is salt is salt and Eugene loses himself to their little bubble of frozen time, to the feeling of Shelton under him and around him. 

Shelton’s hand slips between them, knuckles skating against the hair on Eugene’s belly as he touches himself, and when he comes it’s with a low sob that has Eugene clutching at his hair. Lips to his temple, the smell of salt and sex and sweat in the air, and Shelton’s body taut under him as he spills messy over his stomach. His free hand is gripping to Eugene’s bicep so tightly he’s sure he’ll bruise, and he relishes in it, relishes in the closeness and the pain and the noise Shelton makes as Eugene carries on fucking him, far past the point of control with how badly he wants him and how good he feels around his cock. It’s something small and vulnerable, a moan pulled from deep in his belly as he presses the side of his face into the sheets, hand coming back to pull them half over his face, which is contorted in oversensitive pleasure. If Eugene didn’t know what pain looked like, he’d be sure that Shelton was hurting, the way his brow was furrowed, teeth sank so hard into his lower lip that Eugene’s sure he could draw blood. His hand is clutched white knuckled in the sheet, and Eugene eases it off his face so he can kiss him hungrily, moaning into his mouth when Shelton gathers himself together enough to breathe, “Stay inside me.” His bitten short nails dig into the meat of Eugene’s arm, and Eugene clashes their mouths together as he comes hard inside him. 

“Merriell.” He grunts, and then, “ _Shelton_.” He pushes into him once, twice, and then it all becomes too sensitive and he stills, riding out the aftershocks of his orgasm as he pants heavily against the sweat slick skin of Shelton’s throat. 

Silence settles over the room like a blanket, offset only by their heavy breathing, the sounds of the street outside, the steady _whump_ of the ceiling fan. The floorboards in the hall outside the room creak under someone’s weight. Shelton’s hand comes to settle in Eugene’s hair, fingernails scratching over his scalp in a way that leaves Eugene almost drowsy. He hadn’t realised how heavy the room was with incense smoke; it curls upwards in the still air, almost burned completely down. Eugene can’t gather words, his mind wonderfully blank after all that. The silence between them feels too precious and comfortable to break, besides, so Eugene lets his eyes close as he comes down from his orgasm. Sweat cools, breaths slow, and then Shelton is pressing a kiss to Eugene’s temple.

“Get outta me.” He mumbles, amusement thick in his voice, and his fingers tighten briefly in Eugene’s hair as he does as he’s told and slips out of him. He stands to tie off the rubber and toss it in the trash, and then stretches until his back pops, groaning. Shelton is watching him from where he’s still sprawled on the bed, a dirty angel on the faded sheets. Eugene can’t wipe the grin from his face. After a moment, Shelton stops trying to hold back his own. 

“What’re you smilin’ for.” Eugene says, climbing back onto the bed so he can kiss Shelton again.

“Nothin’.” Shelton rolls his eyes, and turns his face away, that smile still tugging at his mouth as Eugene presses a row of kisses from jaw to nipple. “That felt good. _You_ felt good. Makin’ me never wanna leave.”

Eugene feels that. He wants to stay wrapped up in this dimly lit, smoky little room forever. The barracks and the bush and the whole dirty business of war feel so distant that Eugene can practically convince himself that it’s not real. That nothing lies beyond these four walls, with their cracks and their water stains and dog-eared pages torn from fashion magazines. He curves his thumb over Shelton’s cheek when he rises up to capture his mouth again, and says, “I wish to God I had any concept of you outside of this goddamn war.” 

“We wouldn’t’ve met if it weren’t for this war.” Shelton murmurs, and rolls away from Eugene, hanging half off the bed to drag his dungarees over to himself. He returns triumphant with his pack of smokes and lighter, and flops down next to Eugene, their heads close as they lie together on their backs. He watches Shelton light a smoke, eyes straying over his naked body, trying to map as much as possible as he feels sure he’ll never see him again in a situation so intimate. 

“Doesn’t make me wish I’d known you in the real world any less.” 

Shelton shrugs, and passes his cigarette to Eugene, stretching his arms above his head with a grunt after he takes it. “I ain’t much different.” He says, eyes straying from the ceiling as he tilts his face, pressing his cheek to his bicep as he regards Eugene. A smirk lifts his mouth. “You hopin’ I’d be a gentleman if it weren’t for our beloved Corps? Like I’d be any different back home?”

“I’d like to find out.” Eugene murmurs around his cigarette, and Shelton’s eyes soften. 

“I’m sure you will.” He says, and reaches over to pluck his cigarette from Eugene’s mouth with a grin. 

“I prefer you off those uppers.” Eugene blurts, enjoying Shelton’s lazy, languid movements, his good mood. The amphetamines make him mean and spiky, tightly wound. Liable to lash out at anything. 

Shelton ignores it, and instead says, “Wish we could go for a round two.” He attempts a clumsy smoke ring; his cigarette smoke blurring imperceptibly with the incense hanging in the air, stirred only by the slowly beating fan. He shoots a Eugene sidelong glance from under heavy lids. “You felt so good in my ass I didn’t ever want you to stop.” Smoke streams from his nostrils, eyes dark and hooded. 

His cum is drying sticky on Eugene’s stomach from when he’d pressed up against him, and both the knowledge that they’re gonna head back to camp like that, drying cum on their stomachs and covered in each other’s sweat, and Shelton’s half amused, half aroused gaze, has Eugene feeling like he could almost get it up again. _Almost_. 

“I ain’t sixteen.” He says, rolling over onto his side so he can watch Shelton better. Shelton just raises his eyebrows at him, a smile curling his lips. 

Shelton’s cock is in Eugene’s mouth when someone raps sharply on the door, and it’s only down to Eugene’s frantic grab for the bedsheets that they’re at least halfway covered when the door is thrown open a beat later. 

“Hour is up.” The woman from the reception says, and Shelton has to turn his face into Eugene’s neck to muffle his laughter. Eugene is frozen in embarrassment, and watches as the woman takes in the scene before her; Eugene’s wild hair, his red lips, the flush across the bridge of Shelton’s nose. “You got ten minutes.” She adds, and closes the door with a slam. Shelton collapses in laughter across Eugene’s lap a moment later, only laughing harder when Eugene covers his face with his hands and groans.

“Hey,” Shelton says, laughter in his voice as he tries to pry Eugene’s hands from his face. “Hey, you gonna finish me off or what?” He presses a kiss to what little bit of Eugene’s mouth that isn’t hidden behind his hands, and chuckles. “C’mon, ‘s not cool to leave a guy hanging.”

With some coaxing, Eugene decides to find the humour in it until he can unfreeze enough to push Shelton back down on the bed and swallow him down deep. Hands in his hair, nose pressed to Shelton’s pubic hair, they while away far more than ten minutes until Shelton is coming down Eugene’s throat with a shuddery little moan. 

“Y’know,” Eugene says, as they’re pulling their clothes back on, the taste of Shelton still heavy on his tongue. “You’re quite sweet when you come.” Shelton wrinkles his nose at that, and Eugene laughs, tugging on the front of that little white tee until Shelton’s close enough to kiss. “You are!”

“Quit runnin’ your mouth.” Shelton grumbles, tugging on his hair as he watches Eugene shrug his shirt back on. 

“Don’t worry, it’ll just be between us.” Eugene assures him, smile growing as Shelton glowers back at him. “I ain’t gonna ruin your tough persona. Ain’t nobody gonna find out you’re secretly adorable.”

“Now I think that may be pushin’ fire.” Shelton bites back, but he’s grinning as Eugene hustles him out of the room, down the creaky stairs and back into the bleak, quiet waiting area. He ends up giving the woman there an extra ten bucks, feeling distinctly guilty for the extra time spent, and then Shelton is pushing and pulling him back into the street, into the crush of people, the heat of the midday sun. 

“Jesus.” He mutters, reality crashing down on him as he and Shelton let themselves be drawn into the crowd, buffeted along in the slipstream of people. Almost unconsciously, he reaches to grasp Shelton’s hand, and has to immediately try and hide his hurt when Shelton snatches it away, shooting him a look like he’s crazy. His mind still feels half trapped in that small, hot room, lit orange by the gauzy window covering. The smell of the incense still clings to his clothes, making it hard to detach, hard to slip his public face back on. He wonders, suddenly, desperately, if it will always be like this. 

“Genie.” Shelton says, that funny little nickname, and elbows him in the rips. “Screw ya head on already.”

He can’t get the taste of Shelton out of his mouth, or the image of him naked and taking him so perfectly from his mind. Shelton seems to sense this, that he’s not making the switch back to the front he has to put up to the world very easily, and he’s tugging him by the crook of his elbow into an alley before Eugene can protest it. 

“What’s gotten into you?” He asks, and his lips are still full and bruised-looking from their kissing, from Eugene’s cock in his mouth. The knowledge that Eugene can’t have him like that again is a bitter pill to swallow. “You know better.”

“Do I?” Eugene asks, and glances away from the alley, twisting his ring nervously around his finger. Shelton sucks his teeth, annoyed. 

“What, you just realised you can’t be a queer in full daylight?” He asks, and Eugene can sense the concern beneath the annoyance. It doesn’t help, but it does make him square his shoulders up a little, try and shake whatever strange mood had fallen over him. It wasn’t just himself he could hurt by acting out of line, now. He could implicate Shelton as easy as breathing. 

“No.” He replies, quiet. Shelton is small and handsome and blazing with fear-fuelled annoyance in front of him, his nerves probably still as close to the surface as Eugene’s felt, after their long, languid hour together. Eugene wants to kiss him so badly he has to ball his fists at his sides, his nails sharp points of welcome pain against his palms. 

“You settled with it?” Shelton asks. He doesn't have to expand on what he means, by that.

Eugene watches the street at the end of the alley; the people walking by with no idea that he’s standing there, watching them. It makes Shelton’s snatched away hand make sense, now. There are secret, unfriendly eyes everywhere. “Yes.” He says, and tears his gaze from the street. “‘S almost the ‘70s. A new world.”

“It ain’t new enough yet.” Shelton says, and then pokes Eugene hard in the centre of his chest. 

“-Ow!”

“Settle it with yourself here, Gene.” His eyes are very wide in the dimmer light of the alley, something earnest in him that Eugene has never seen before, or even expected from him. He wonders how he’s never seen this: Shelton’s protective streak a mile wide under that hard outer shell of his, a protectiveness that Eugene has somehow managed to miss and miss and miss. “Just ‘cos we can’t act it in public don’t mean what happened just now in that room weren’t real.”

Eugene sags against the cool brick wall, hand rubbing idly at the spot Shelton had poked him in. “I’m sorry.” He says, distant. “I know.”

“Then act it.” Shelton says, and the two of them share a long, silent look before Shelton breaks it and adds, “I wish I could kiss you.”

Eugene snorts, and glances away. “Tell me about it.” 

They walk back slow, stopping to buy a myriad of sweets from a street vendor that Shelton spots, and they sit on the banks of the dirty, slow moving river to eat them. Eugene senses that Shelton feels almost _bad_ for snapping at him so, because as the afternoon moves from midday to evening, he fills Eugene in on anything he cares to know, in his own strange, slow-speaking way. Growing up on the bayou, on black music, on radio, on books. In poverty, below the breadline, and under the thumb of a father Eugene could tell he hated from the casual way he spoke of his death. Seventh son of a seventh son, no magic powers but lingering memories of his grandmother’s swamp religion, drifting somewhere between hoodoo and Catholicism like most creoles he knew. He hadn’t liked JFK. He’d kissed his first boy at sixteen. He liked Cream, but not Eric Clapton. He was ready for the bomb. He’d been arrested and imprisoned at eighteen, and refuses to tell Eugene why.

Eugene drinks it all up, sucking sugar from his fingers as he listens to Shelton’s meandering, lilting accent, mind working overtime to form a picture of Shelton from before he’d known him. It’s the most open he’s ever seen him, and Eugene keeps that fact close to his heart. That night, Shelton takes a walk at the same time as Burgie does, and Eugene sits in his rack and writes all he can remember down in his battered little journal. The need felt urgent, to capture the threads of the day before they blew away entirely amongst the slog of the next few months. Some memories are too precious to record, but some are far too precious to ever consider losing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! lemme know what u thought! i promise not all chapters are gonna be this long but like let's get into the xmas giving spirit on this 1st of the month
> 
> also, i finally made good on my promise to post a link to the mix i've made for this fic! it's right [here](http://getmean.tumblr.com/post/180683181274/a-blue-million-miles-a-fic-mix-listen-link). it's half songs which are mentioned in the fic, in case you aren't familiar with them, and other songs that are just kinda there for the atmosphere vibe mood etc. i always listen to it while writing!


	9. Chapter 9

The jungle hasn’t changed during their week of R&R, and it doesn’t take Eugene long at all to realise that neither had he. Or any of them. Shelton goes back to popping speed on the very first night of their trek to camp. Burgie takes up chain smoking around the same time, especially after an incident they had involving a well placed tripwire and a FNG on point who looked every which way but right down in front of him. Eugene can’t blame either of them; the bush remains caught in that sickening space between mindless monotony and a particularly macabre spook house. A little substance abuse is sometimes the only relief, be that cigarettes or something far more terrible. And after their R&R, it’s unbearable. It becomes a mindless, endless stream of putting one foot in front of the other, sweating, not talking, blisters in damp boots, aching bodies. Eyes on the ground, senses flooded open, eyes on the tree line and the canopy above. Every shadow becomes a VC. Every twig or vine or irregular bump in the ground becomes a snake, a tripwire, a badly concealed claymore. 

Eugene wonders if this is what sends men mad. Not the killing, not seeing their friends die gruesome and young in front of them. Not the grief and the feeling of abandonment from the higher-highers, the missing home, the weight of killing or the weight of being killed hanging over them. Just this: the pure monotony, the pure stress that that monotony may be broken at any time. Eugene doesn’t know what’s worse, a firefight, or tramping for hours interrupted, with the only thing to show the passage of time being the growing ring of sweat on his chest, the throbbing of his feet in his boots. 

An order comes down the line, just as the night is dropping dark around them, that the man on point has deemed the certain part of jungle they’re in a good enough RON spot as any. Even the knowledge that he’ll have to spend another night trussed up in his boots and his clothes and all his gear isn’t enough to dull Eugene’s brief moment of euphoria at letting his pack slip to the ground. He grins at Shelton, who is shadowing him as he always does, and raises his hands above his head to stretch, grimacing as he does so. 

“Ain’t there somethin’ like Stockholm Syndrome in a RON?” He asks, stretching until his back cracks as Shelton eyes him up like he’s mad. “Makes me so happy to get this goddamn pack off me that I don’t seem to mind bein’ a sittin’ duck for a night.”

“You’re nuts.” Shelton mutters, rolling his eyes as he half turns to drop his pack down next to Eugene’s. Around them, their platoon is following suit, lightening their loads and taking seats on their helmets to rest their aching feet. The jungle is a rustle of near-silent activity for a handful of minutes, and then their CO hisses at them all to quiet the fuck down, and they do. Eugene hunkers down next to Shelton, who is sitting on the ground like he doesn’t give a shit about anything that could be crawling around down there. 

“Shelton.” He breathes, taking the opportunity of the steadily darkening forest to touch his hand to Shelton’s knee. “Are you sleepin’ tonight?”

His reply is terse enough that Eugene can tell he’d probably taken more speed just before they’d drawn up short to stop for the night. “Nope.”

The trees shift above them, and Eugene’s heartbeat picks up at the noise, one he’s sure he’ll associate with this war for a long time to come. He settles on his haunches, uses Shelton’s knee to steadily himself as he pushes through his nerves and whispers, “I don’t wanna sleep either.” Shelton’s eyes slide back to his, pupils blown. “If you catch my drift.”

Their CO comes treading past them, murmuring to Shelton, “You’re on first couple hours watch, Private.” 

Shelton barely registers his words, lifting a hand absently to show he’d heard, before saying, “What, you don’t keep what the medics give you?” Both his voice and his expression are incredulous through the darkness. Eugene gets it. To Shelton, what Eugene has been throwing away is as valuable as gold in _his_ war. Eugene just shrugs, and Shelton glares off into the jungle for a second before he sucks his teeth in annoyance, bringing his hand up to dig in his breast pocket. 

“Thank you.” Eugene murmurs, breathless relief plain as day in his voice as he holds his hand out for the pill Shelton holds. He doesn’t drop it, and when Eugene lifts his gaze Shelton is staring at him, gaze so hard it feels like it could cut right through him. 

“Tell me why you want it.” He says, voice so low Eugene can barely catch what he’s saying. His hand is poised above Eugene’s outstretched palm, and Eugene’s ring catches what little light is left in the day with the tremor in his hand. “This ain’t like you.”

There it was again, that protective streak. Eugene hadn’t expected Shelton to give up any of his precious stash with no questions asked, but he still felt a tiny twinge of resentment at it. Like he wasn’t a grown man who was issued these drugs on patrols anyway. His fault for throwing them away, his fault for underestimating how much a man may want to escape sleep in a place like this. “Shelton.” He says, just once, testing the waters of the drought that he knew Shelton’s patience to be. He doesn’t budge. “I’ve been gettin’ nightmares.” He says, finally, and holds Shelton’s gaze until his eyes flick down and he’s pressing the pill into Eugene’s palm. “Thank you.”

“I ain’t your keeper.” Shelton says, and Eugene scoffs before knocking the pill back, dry swallowing it. He can feel it stuck in his throat, and takes Shelton’s proffered canteen thankfully.

“If you ain’t my keeper then I dunno what you are.” 

Shelton chooses to ignore that, but it must stick in his throat as bad as the pill had stuck in Eugene’s, as he moves away a beat later without another word. Eugene can’t help the vague sense that he’s done something _wrong_ , and it’s only compounded by Shelton’s distancing himself. He sits alone in the darkness, listening to his platoon settling down around him, waiting. 

The pill doesn’t take long to set in, not with Eugene’s empty stomach and his exhaustion. He’s never been one for drugs; too chicken to try LSD, and pot only makes him sweaty and anxious. The speed, so far, seems to be no different. His heart rate begins to pick up, pulse thudding heavy in his ears as he flexes his hands in his lap, trying to work away the tingles in his fingertips. It’s only when he notices that he’s been grinding his teeth for the last five minutes, does Eugene realise that what Shelton had given him is taking effect. His stomach swoops, anxiety curdling in the pit of his stomach as his heart beats away far too fast in his chest. He feels over-alert, over-stimulated, but finally, blessedly awake. He shakes a cigarette out of the pack he has slipped under his helmet band, hands trembling as he works hard to get the match struck against his boot.

“You ain’t ever gonna get it lit like that.” Comes Shelton’s voice, and Eugene can just make out the vague outline of him as he paces over to join Eugene. A moment later, he’s tapping his Zippo to Eugene’s arm, cool metal against his overheated skin.

“I feel funny.” Eugene mutters, and lights his cigarette quickly, taking a harsh drag from it before handing Shelton back his lighter. He feels like a pot just at boiling point, held just at that tight, consuming moment before release as his heart pounds beneath his breastbone. He holds his hand against his chest, and Shelton eases it away. 

“If you concentrate on your heart,” He says, “It’ll scare ya.” 

Eugene shakes his hand away, an odd wave of annoyance rising in him. He feels like he needs to walk this strange, manic restlessness off, like there’s too much energy coiling in his muscles for comfort. A rustle of the trees around them has him snapping his head around, eyes straining against the complete blackness of the night until his head starts to ache. Shelton taps his wrist, and Eugene jumps again, dislodging the growing column of ash from his cigarette to let it fall over the knee of his pants. 

“What?” He hisses, high strung and only cranking higher. 

“Smoke ya cigarette.”

Eugene does, his trembling hand bringing it to his mouth as the dark smudge of Shelton watches on. He can’t see him at all, any light from the moon is hidden by thick clouds, by the thick canopy of the jungle above them. He’s nothing but a feeling next to Eugene, just the suggestion of a presence; his scent of insect repellant and sweat, the heat of his body and the weight of him bending the humid air. Eugene can’t describe it, but all his senses feel so heightened to a razor’s edge that he’s sure he’d be able to pick Shelton out from a hundred yards in this darkness. 

“Why d’you enjoy this?” He asks, keeping his voice quiet as his nerves ebb and flow. “Feel like I’m set to vibrate out my damn skin.” 

Shelton snorts, and takes the time to draw out his own smoke, and light it. “Never said I liked it.”

“You take ‘em damn near every day.” Eugene says, “Two, three times.”

“And you took one today.” Shelton replies, in a tone that implies that line of questioning is done with. “So maybe you can understand me now.”

“I just didn’t wanna sleep.” Eugene says, miserably, scooching up a little closer to Shelton on the hard ground. Shelton scoffs, and then his arm settles around Eugene’s shoulders, secret under the blanket of night. It’s comforting, and Eugene lets out a shaky little exhale as he wills his heart to stop racing in his chest. 

“What sleep?” Shelton asks, darkly amused. Eugene doesn’t bite.

“No difference between two hours and zero hours.” Eugene murmurs, and then, “Don’t you wanna know what I’m dreamin’ about?”

He traces the cherry of Shelton’s cigarette through the darkness, watches it flare as he inhales on it, picking out his face in the dull red glow. It reminds him of how Shelton had looked soaked in red neon and drunk as a lord that hot, humid night in Saigon. The speed is making him reckless, restless; he wants to grab hold of Shelton and push him into the rich smelling earth just as badly as he wants to cover his head and will the drug to leech from his system.

“I don’t think I dare.” Shelton says, interrupting Eugene’s speed-addled, breathless rush of thought. He takes another drag off his smoke, and in that brief flare of light Eugene can see how wide his pupils are dilated, and wonders if his are as blown too. 

“You.” He breathes. His cigarette is burned down so low that he can feel the heat on his knuckles, and the tremor in his hand sends ash tipping hot over his skin. “I’ve been dreamin’ ‘bout you.”

“Nothin’ good, I assume.” Shelton’s voice is wry, sardonic, that heavy accent dripping thick like honey from this words.

“When is it ever?”

The sounds of the forest fills the silence that follows, flooding into the space like it was made for it. To Eugene’s pricked up senses, it’s torture. He feels on such high alert that it’s only Shelton’s arm around his shoulders that is keeping him grounded, rooted to the floor. His jaw hurts from grinding his teeth, but he’s helpless to anything else but smoke and will it away.

“I gotta ask you somethin’.” Eugene says, half-stumbling over his words in his haste to get them out. If there’s anything good he can take from this, is that Eugene is finding that the speed is making him bolder than he’s ever felt before. “Shelton, is that okay?”

“Depends what you’re gonna ask.” Shelton murmurs, a slight edge to his voice that may have made Eugene stop and let the topic go if he wasn’t coasting an amphetamine high with nowhere to put his excess energy except for expunging all of his worries.

“If you don’t want me askin’ you can tell me that.” Eugene says, and he feels rather than sees Shelton’s face turn his way. Eugene can imagine his expression; his hooded eyes, the particular twist to his mouth that he gets when he’s annoyed. Eugene waits a beat, and when the only sign from Shelton that he wants him to speak or not is his removing of his arm from around Eugene’s shoulders, he says, “I just want you to be honest with me about somethin’.” 

“Shoot.” His voice is tight, and punctuated with a flare of his cigarette.

“I asked if you loved him, and you didn’t give me a straight answer.” Eugene says, and Shelton touches his knee warningly. Eugene drops his voice, now conscious of the men around them, and those who may be up just like them. Night owls, or those burning the midnight oil with a couple hundred milligrams of Dexedrine, too. “And I think I don’t care if you did, or do. I just wanna know that I ain’t a rebound for you to keep you from your grief.”

In the week they had had in Saigon, Eugene had almost forgotten how true the silence of the jungle can be. His nights became full of the sounds of a thriving city, of trucks and mopeds and people’s voices, American rock spilling from bars across the street from bars cranking pop higher and higher. It proves how accustomed he’d become to that with how his ears ring with the silence that follows his words; it’s like every midnight creature, every goddamn VC and rustling branch, has quieted, hushed in anticipation of what Shelton might say in response. Eugene finds himself caught up in it too, damn near holding his breath as his traitor heart thuds away under his ribs. He wishes he could see Shelton’s face, wishes that he had even a chance of finding a good time to bring up this thought he’d had rolling around in his head for weeks. But if his near four months in country had taught him anything, is that there’s no concept of a bad time _or_ a good time, here. Everything’s baseline awful, and war is no place for talk of feelings besides, so it’s up to him to bite the bullet and bring it up anyway. He needs to know, because there are no certainties in Vietnam and gods knows he’ll rest uneasy if he or Shelton get dusted before he knows the truth. 

“I’ll level with you.” Shelton says, then, and Eugene senses him shift as he lights a cigarette off the butt of his old one. What Eugene can make out of his face by the minute, fading glow is serious, his jaw set. Eugene’s mouth is dry, and whether that’s from his nerves or the speed, he has no idea. He swallows, and does his best not to leap ahead to conclusions as his brain so sorely wants him to. “I was worried ‘bout the same thing.”

“Okay.” Eugene mutters, quick, his nerves singing. When Shelton doesn’t say anything more, he adds, “And didja think about it, or just worry?”

Shelton _tsks_ , and snaps, “Jesus, lemme fuckin’ think about what I wanna say, willya?”

It’s sobering to realise that Eugene is acting just like Shelton under the influence of the speed. Testy, edgy, more than a little paranoid. “Sorry.” He mutters, and lights another illicit cigarette just for something to do with his hands. If their CO catches them sparking up they’ll be dead meat, but luckily the tiny bursts of light have gone so far unnoticed. _Good_ , Eugene thinks, as Shelton smokes silently next to him. He isn’t sure he could get through this conversation without the steadying hand of nicotine, much less the hours he has left of the drug in his system. 

“I thought it’d feel like a betrayal but it didn’t.” Shelton says, eventually, and Eugene is glad at least that the uppers are working to keep him awake. Shelton is historically quick to temper and slow to speak, slow to work around whatever is in his head to get it out into the world. He’s sure they’ll be here all night, so he keeps silent, sure Shelton isn’t done speaking. He’s right, because a beat later Shelton pipes up again. “That _you’d_ feel like a betrayal. But it ain’t ever felt like that, an’ I think that says more than I can put into any kinda words.”

“Well it don’t make much sense to me.” Eugene mumbles, wishing again that he could see Shelton’s face; his big, expressive eyes. “I ain’t in your head, I can’t read your mind.” His hand trembles as he brings his cigarette to his mouth, upsetting more ash to drift down unseen onto his uniform. 

“You don’t ever make somethin’ easy, huh?”

“S’pose not.” Eugene mumbles around his cigarette.

The wind whistles through the trees, that eerie stillness dissipated. It does little to ease the anxious knot in Eugene’s chest, however, his senses still blown wide open, his head beginning to ache under how painfully alert he is in the pitch darkness. Shelton rests his hand on Eugene’s knee, a clumsy touch in the dark, and squeezes. “What I’m tryna say,” He murmurs, a steely line of annoyance in his voice that almost belies the begrudging but absolute patience he seems to have for Eugene and his anxieties. “Is that when I first started feelin’ so goddamned responsible for your safety, I thought it was just because you reminded me of him. ‘Cos he’d kicked it just a couple months before you came along, and ‘cos I got you clocked right away and thought a bit of chase might get me feelin’ right again.”

“Is this meant to make me feel better?” Eugene interrupts, and Shelton squeezes his knee again.

“If you’d shut up and let me finish, yeah.” He hisses, and Eugene rolls his eyes but keeps his mouth shut. Like it didn’t sting to hear what had been going through Shelton’s mind in those early weeks. He feels shuddery, jittery, not himself. It’s hard to keep quiet when he wants to bite back against everything Shelton is saying. “It turned out different, okay? I didn’t expect you to get under my skin like you have.”

The fight ebbs from Eugene a little bit, hearing those words from Shelton. He’s never known him to be particularly sincere or upfront about anything, so hearing the naked honesty in his voice is enough to shock him into silence. When he doesn’t say anything more, Shelton barrels on. “And Jesus, y’know, you make it easy to forget we’re fightin’ a fuckin’ war here, Gene. I feel happy with you. I ain’t full up of guilt and all that shit like I was.” He stops, like he’s casting around for words, and then says, “It was meant to be nothin’, but then it turned into somethin’ real and I didn’t even notice until it was too late. You got to me, what the fuck else was I meant to do?” He makes a sound of frustration, and his hand tightens on Eugene’s knee. Silently, Eugene covers it with his own trembling hand, clammy with nerves. At his touch, Shelton shuffles a little closer, nothing more than a shadow amongst shadows, his shoulder pressed up against Eugene’s the only thing making him real. 

“You really feel like that?” Eugene asks, glancing to the side like it mattered at all. Shelton flips his hand over so he can grasp Eugene’s, twisting his fingers through his own until they’re sweaty palm to sweaty palm.

“I sure as hell do.” He murmurs, “So don’t make me fuckin’ repeat myself.” His tone is playful enough that his words don’t make Eugene’s hackles rise, as irritable and highly strung as he feels. Eugene squeezes Shelton’s hand in his own, and leans in close until he can press his cheek to Shelton’s bony shoulder. 

“You got to me too.” He says, simply. Shelton snorts, and Eugene can hear his smile in it. “Just never give me any fuckin’ uppers again and we’ll be good.” He adds, and frees his hand from Shelton’s grasp to lock his arm around his neck and wrestle him close enough to fumble a kiss onto his stubbly cheek. 

“Deal.” Shelton whispers, his voice cracking a little as he fights to hold back a yelp as Eugene nips at his earlobe. “Jesus, Genie, get off.”

“I like it when you call me that.” Eugene breathes back, blood singing under the bright fizzing feeling of the drugs, finally hitting his system right, and under the great dark weight of wondering that Shelton’s words have finally lifted. Shelton braces a hand to his chest, working hard to muffle a laugh as Eugene grabs him again by his collar, and pulls him close enough so he can ask, “Answer me straight. Did he love you?”

It’s so dark that Eugene has to imagine Shelton’s green eyes, his sweat slicked brow and the sunkissed glow of his copper skin. He tightens his hands in his collar, the stiff fabric under his hands and the warmth of Shelton’s body close to his the only thing keeping his imagination from wearing thin. “He fucked me.” Shelton murmurs, just a trace of humour in his voice. “I fell for him.”

“You’re a romantic, huh?” Eugene says, and grins when Shelton snorts and shoves him away again. 

“That’s all you.” He replies, hand curling at the nape of Eugene’s neck as he creeps closer again, bumps his nose against Shelton’s in a blind attempt at a kiss. The second try is better, and Shelton allows it for a minute before he’s pushing Eugene back, a note of finality in his tone as he says, “You’re pushin’ fire, boo.”

“I know, I know.” Eugene says, backing off as much as the almost manic edge to his relief would allow. “I just didn’t expect you to say all that.”

“Yeah, well.” Shelton says, sounding a little sheepish. Eugene doesn’t need to see to know that Shelton’s hand is in his hair, tugging at his curls. “Don’t expect me to say nothin’ like it again.”

“Why’d you say it at all, then?”

A foot away, someone coughs, and shifts in his sleep, the rustling of the poncho he’s wrapped around himself deafening in the dark. Eugene and Shelton still, ears pricked like dogs for any other noise, and when none comes, Shelton breathes, “You deserved to know. ‘S been on my mind.”

Eugene feels brave enough to chance another kiss at that, and Shelton allows him, gathers him up close under the secretive cover of darkness. Eugene’s fingers and toes still feel tingly with cold, excess energy, but for the first time that night he feels settled enough to sit in silence with Shelton. The watch rotates, Shelton being relieved by a tired but alert Burgie, who claps him on the shoulder and whispers, “I got it from here.” Eugene feigns sleep throughout their exchange, stretched out on the hard ground as he feels his heart beat down down into the soles of his feet and back up. He feels like a live wire, nerves pressing overgrown to his skin with it, like he should be glowing through the night. 

Then Shelton lays his head down on his stomach, and Eugene traces his fingers down over his face just to feel his expression; his open eyes, the full pout of his lips, stubbled cheeks and up up into his sweat stiff curls. They lie like that, sharing the night, sharing the knowledge of each other, until the dawn begins to kiss the sky and they receive their orders to saddle up and move out, into another day in the jungle, onto base camp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! lemme know what u think :^)
> 
> also i'm dropping back to updating once a week: it's well past the point in the fic where i realised this was gonna be really really long, and as a result the scenes and getting longer and longer! and i don't wanna run out of fic to upload, as i'm still writing it, and want to be able to consistently update every week for you guys, so back to only wednesdays :~)!!
> 
> also, does any of the slang/colloquialisms/jargon fly over your head in this fic? if i threw together a very basic glossary, would that be helpful? i've spent a lot of time reading war memoirs and stuff so i'm familiar with it, but i'm not sure if that's really universal! lemme know


	10. Chapter 10

“Shit, shower, shave.” Shelton announces, the minute they come into sight of base. Eugene, too tired and foot weary to really reply, just grunts. The new kid, some short, blonde Okie named Hamm, wrinkles his nose at Shelton’s words. To Hamm's detriment, he notices, and sneers at him, reaching out to chuck him under the chin, and Shelton’s grin widens when Hamm recoils and knocks his hand away, his expression of disgust deepening. “Eh, Hamm?”

Shelton had taken an immediate disliking to Hamm in the same way he’s historically taken a disliking to most people, initially. “Be nicer to him.” Eugene hisses, as Shelton bumps up against his side, still grinning. 

“I don’t like his fuckin’ face.” 

Eugene groaned, exasperated. “His brother just died.” His attempt to shame Shelton into any kind of empathy falls on deaf ears. The other man shrugs, pursing his lips.

“Don’t like his fuckin’ brother, either.”

“You’re _awful_.” Eugene says, erupting into guilty laughter as Shelton snickers in his ear, leaned up close as they dawdle closer to the edge of base camp. Hamm catches up with Burgie ahead, the only one of them who’s patient enough with him, oblivious to Shelton’s mean words.

The base camp is a small, razed bare piece of jungle, large enough for them all to stretch out a little, and tiny from the air. Like a silver dollar sized patch of skin on a balding man. The first time Eugene had seen it from the sky, clinging onto his lunch for dear life as the Huey had lurched this way and that, he’d been struck by how close the jungle looked to swallowing it up; swathes and swathes of green against that tiny patch he would come to know as some sort of home. Later, he’d learned they’d razed the place to dirt with Agent Orange and bulldozers, but the fear still stuck in his head as much as it had when he had first seen it. The tree line seems a looming, patient enemy. Only a low perimeter wall separates their jungle from this makeshift desert of dry dirt and dust, wilderness from wilderness, too close for comfort but the best he’s had for a long time. He ducks his head to avoid getting caught up in it as they arrive and begin splitting off; Shelton making a beeline for the makeshift shower block with only a pointed glance over his shoulder telling Eugene he wanted him to follow.

Dog that he is, Eugene follows. 

Waiting half an hour in line for the shower amongst two dozen other men who hadn’t seen a lick of water and soap in weeks is not really Eugene’s idea of a relaxing time, especially not with the beating sun on the back of his neck, in his eyes. But the minute he gets himself stripped down and into the communal shower, all his worries seem to snap out of him as he gasps under the rush of blessedly cold water. Freezing, but just the right side of it, cold enough to wake him up and get him moving, scrubbing at the dirt on his skin, in his hair. The water flowing down past all their feet is tinged orange; the red clay they’re all coated in finally being washed away. It feels like the shell of the past week melting away; getting all the dust and mud and grime from his body until he almost feels _normal_. When Eugene tips his face up into the stream of water, he catches Shelton’s eye, his wide, pleased smile. Cat that got the cream style.

“I ain’t gonna recognise you without that stink on ya.” Eugene says, and Shelton’s smile splits into a genuine, toothy grin. 

“Maybe I’ll be able to lose you then.” He retorts, lathering up a bar of soap between his palms until he can sink sudsy fingers into his wet hair. Eugene watches him out of the corner of his eye, back turned to the other guys showering alongside them so they don’t see him looking. He likes to see the freckles and sun discolouration on Shelton’s shoulders, wants to run his fingers down the knots of his spine, feel his clean, wet skin, goose pimpled by the cold water.

“Well fuck,” Someone cries, something friendly and mock-shocked in their tone. “Sledge, didn’t take you for a real redhead. Thought you were all that red mud ‘n dirt.”

“Carpet, drapes.” Shelton quips, to the other men’s raucous laughter. Shelton grins at Eugene, hooded eyes slitted and sly with their secret. 

“Fuck off, the lotta you.” Sledge retorts, grinning, his attention torn away from the soap clinging to Shelton’s skin long enough to rinse himself off and step away from the water. Another Marine steps up to take his place, and Eugene can barely believe that no more than a handful of minutes ago he’d smelled that bad too. That rotting jungle scent; good for throwing off the tail of VC and little else.

He seeks out clean underwear, and clean dungarees, which feel almost as good as the shower had. Eugene can’t remember the last time he’d switched out his pants, and the more he thinks on it the less he believes he’s ever had a new pair. It’s almost bittersweet, tossing the old ones, torn and patched and bleached near white with the salt from his sweat and the beating down sun. _Almost_. The pants he gets are too big, but a belt fixes that and Eugene spends the next twenty minutes drying off in the sun, half-listening to Hamm narrate a game of solitaire to him as he squints at himself this way and that in a ridiculous palm sized mirror, attempting to shave for the first time in weeks. 

“I tried to grow a beard once.” Hamm mutters, and Eugene hisses as he nicks himself. “Ended up just about as good as yours.”

“Well I weren’t tryin’.” Eugene replies, idly, smearing the bead of blood that blooms on his chin into a scarlet streak across his face. “Fuck.”

“Needa hand?”

“You need a shave more than me.” Eugene mumbles, not looking up as Shelton takes a seat on the ground next to him with a grunt.

“Yours is lookin’ a little worse than mine, boo.” Shelton says, and tilts his chin up with a frown as he licks his thumb and then scrubs at the dried blood on Eugene’s face with it. “Still waitin’ on puberty, huh?”

Eugene has nothing to shoot back with, and he’s too caught up in Shelton holding his chin steady to tilt his face to get a good look at his cut chin to realise that Hamm has fallen completely silent. It’s unnatural not to have his dragging Okie accent cluttering up the background of conversation, and when Eugene slides his gaze his way, Hamm is staring at the two of them with open bemusement on his face. His mouth is open, slightly, eyes darting back and forth between Eugene and Shelton like he’s looking at a very hard math puzzle. Quickly, Eugene bats Shelton’s hand away, odd, nervous laughter bubbling up in his chest with how Hamm’s lip curls then, in true confusion.

“I’ll handle it.” Eugene says, and darts his eyes quickly away when Shelton gives him a silent, questioning look. A couple boots tramp by, overexcited and loudly discussing something about napalm and a claymore. The sound seems to shake Shelton back into the real world, and he hurls a venomous glance around that lands squarely on the only target nearby.

“Fuck you lookin’ at?” He snaps, body a taut line of irritation leading directly to Hamm, sitting cross legged and struck dumb in front of his card game. He opens his mouth to reply, but Shelton is turning away from him towards Eugene before he can even try. “I’ll get you if you get me.”

“If I fuck up again, ‘s all yours.” Eugene tries his best to inject his tone with authority, but a minute later he’s bleeding from a brand new nick in his cheek and Shelton is suddenly far closer to his face with a razor than he ever thought he’d be comfortable with. 

“Ain’t gonna hurt ya.” Shelton murmurs, his jaw tightening at the snort Hamm can’t muffle at his words. “You next, huh, Hamm?”

“Not on your life.” Hamm says, and Eugene catches the amused quirk of Shelton’s mouth at that, before he reigns it in. It makes something warm and affectionate swell up inside of Eugene, the knowledge that maybe Shelton isn’t as awful as he makes out. 

He shaves Eugene’s face for him, surprisingly gentle and methodical in his movements. It’s comforting to have Shelton’s hands on his face, affectionate in its own way, despite Hamm’s narration having started back up again. Eugene supposes this is what he has to look forward to now: the small acceptable touches between men. It won’t be enough, not by far, but in that moment it almost is. Shelton, those pale green eyes focused and intent on Eugene, his big, careful hands, his fingers points of heat against Eugene’s flushed face. It’s a bright day; the sun is caressing Eugene’s bare shoulders just right, he’s bathed and wearing clean clothes, a hot meal is on the cards and a semi-real bed and the prospect of being able to take off his boots lie in his future. 

“Didja brush your teeth?” He asks, meeting Shelton’s gaze as the other man wipes a stray smudge of shaving foam from Eugene’s lip. Where he’s touched him is tingling in the wake of his fingers, like Eugene’s hands had tingled under the influence of the speed. He shouldn’t be so touch starved, but when Shelton’s hand settles on his jaw to tilt his face towards him, he has to bite back on a whine. He can smell mint on Shelton’s breath, and wants so badly to taste it. 

“If rubbin’ some stolen toothpaste around my mouth counts as brushin’, sure.” Shelton drops him a wink, which Eugene rolls his eyes at. 

“I’ll scare us both up a toothbrush.” Eugene says, and Shelton whistles, furrowing his brow as the razor rasps over a patch of hair on Eugene’s cheek. 

“A man who _provides_.” He murmurs, faux impressed, and Eugene catches Hamm raising his eyebrows to himself at that. Shelton steps back from Eugene a minute later, hands on his hips as he surveys his handiwork. “Bare as a twelve-year old.” He says, grin stretched from ear to ear. “Suits ya.”

Eugene throws him a long suffering glance, which only makes Shelton’s smile stretch wider, just toeing the line between amused and mocking as it almost always is. It’s hard to tear his eyes away, but Eugene does; heaving himself to his feet so he and Shelton can swap places. It’s almost a shame to watch Shelton lather up his jaw, working it over his dark facial hair until it’s covered. Eugene figures he likes it; prefers him with a little stubble over clean shaven. 

“Had your shit and your shower then, Shelton?” Burgie asks, wandering over good natured and relaxed with a large tin mug of coffee in his hand. Shelton doesn’t pause in his task, eyes intent on the little pocket mirror he’s cleverly propped up on the pack he’s sitting in front of. 

“Well, I showered.” He mutters distractedly, razor laying a swathe of his shaving foam laden cheek bare in its wake. “Them C-rations don’t do nothin’ for a man’s system. Got me backed up all the way to Hanoi.”

“You need to drink more water.” Burgie says, passing his mug off to Eugene when he sees how he’s looking at it. Eugene takes a great big gulp, his moan of rapture muffled inside the tin. They’d ran out of coffee a couple days ago, and Eugene has been craving it like he craves a cigarette; gut-deep, breathless. The heat of it is enough to spring new sweat to his forehead, combined with the heat of the low hanging sun, but he pays it no mind as he takes another long drink of it. Burgie smacks his bicep. “Hey, only a sip. Get ya own.” 

“I ran outta iodine tabs.” Shelton says, to no one, and then, “Water here’s too good at makin’ me shit without ‘em.”

“Don’t give him the satisfaction.” Burgie mutters, holding a hand out to Hamm, who looks set to make a disgusted remark. Shelton’s answering smile is Cheshire cat-esque, sly and deeply amused. 

The afternoon passes by with the sort of idle peace that Eugene knows he’s only enjoying because he’s out of the habit of it. Those long, slow, lurching hours of nothingness punctuated only by the adrenaline rush of a firefight. In a day or two, what is a moment of rare relaxation becomes just pure boredom. Men will begin to talk amongst themselves about the next patrol, the next ambush, the next _anything_. But Eugene is too fresh from the journey to base camp; too fresh from the pressing anxiety of the jungle, the sleepless nights and the heavy packs and the shitty food. The rice and beans they eat that evening feel like a feast fit for kings, especially with the stubby, lukewarm cans of beer passed around with it. 

“These guys in the rear really have it figured out.” L’Eau says, spooning mushy rice into his mouth so quick Eugene can’t believe he can find time to talk. Somebody’s trimmed his hair for him, a bad approximation of the short back and sides they’d all been treated to in basic, and his big, freckled ears stick out from his head badly with it. Shelton had started calling him Dumbo, and had only stopped when L’Eau had ratted him out to Burgie. 

“Sure,” Shelton pipes up, mangled around a cigarette as he smacks his Zippo against his palm. “If sittin’ on ya ass like a chicken and lettin’ the real Marines win this war is havin’ it all figured out.”

Eugene almost chokes on his food. “And what war is that which we’re winnin’, Shelton?”

Shelton flips him the bird silently, exhaling smoke into the air between them. “Well we weren’t losin’ until you joined.” He tilts his head to the side. “Wanna try and explain that one?”

“Can it, you two.” Burgie says, pointing his spoon at Shelton with the same air of warning Eugene has seen him point his rifle with. Shuts Shelton up just the same. “I’ve gotta sleep in the lean-to next to yours tonight, and don’t wanna stay up hearin’ you bicker when I’m s’posed to be catchin’ up on my sleep.”

Eugene can’t make eye contact with Shelton after that, for fear he’ll laugh as soon as he sees the expression he can imagine on Shelton’s face. Something caught between sheepish and wickedly amused, he’s sure. Burgie would be so lucky if bickering was all he heard from them. 

“You still sleep?” Shelton asks, archly, and tuts. “Amateur.” When Eugene risks a glance his way, his eyes are already settled on Eugene, chin tipped up and eyes hooded through the veil of his cigarette smoke. His expression makes Eugene feel warm all over, and he ducks his head so no one notices the blush leeching its way onto his face. 

“Not all of us have the luxury of sleepin’ like a short timer.” Burgie says, scooping his tin plate up with him as he stands. Shelton freezes away at that, expression tightening up slightly as his gaze slides away and his cigarette twitches up to his mouth. “Your time sleepin’ on the ground is finite.”

“Short timer my ass.” Shelton snaps, and Burgie just snorts, clapping him on the shoulder as he passes by. Eugene’s blood runs cold at Burgie’s words, bringing back that age old question that had bothered him so much at the beginning of his tour. The fact that Shelton didn’t seem to keep a calendar was a preoccupation that had faded in his mind as more and more pressing things crowded into it as the days went by. But now, it's pulled to the front, hard to avoid. Just how little time left did Shelton have? The thought won’t stop running through his brain, even as the rest of them turn back to their food and to their conversation.

The four of them, him, Shelton, L’Eau and Hamm, end up playing a game of cards after dinner, huddled together as they smoke and swap stories. It quickly turns unsalvageable when Shelton loses the whole carton of cigarettes that he’d picked up before leaving Saigon to Hamm; it's only when Shelton begins threatening him does Hamm surrender the cigarettes back, a sour expression on his face. 

“You’re a sore loser.” He says, shuffling the deck as L’Eau laughs himself stupid at his side. 

“And what of it?” Shelton shoots back at him, and Eugene rolls his eyes. Most people know better than to poke at Shelton when he’s got his hackles up, and Burgie’s earlier comment about his time left had done that and some. Hamm hadn't yet gotten the memo, it seemed. “I don’t have a lotta shit to call my own.”

“Then don’t _bet_ it.” Hamm says, his tone torn between disbelief and exasperation, eyebrows to his hairline. Shelton is coiled up tight next to Eugene, practically vibrating with how badly annoyed he is. But the night has fallen dark around them, so Eugene takes the opportunity to lay his hand between Shelton’s shoulder blades in an effort to wind him down a little.

“You-” Shelton starts, and Eugene rubs at his back, tips his leg closer so his knee bumps against Shelton’s. At the touch, Shelton sags a little; the hard line of his body softening under Eugene’s hand. “Y’know what,” He mutters, turning his face away. “You ain’t worth it.”

There follows a beat of silence, in which the only noises are the low chatter of men, of distant radios. Eugene can almost forget that they’re smack bang in the middle of the jungle out here, when he’s this far from the tree line with a hot meal in his belly. None of that damn whispering from the trees. Then Hamm deals them all a new hand, and the fight is past them. If there’s one thing to be grateful for in a situation like theirs, it’s that mostly everything feels so goddamn petty in comparison to what they have to get through day by day, so most arguments and grudges are abandoned fairly quickly. Sure, there’s always one guy in a platoon that’ll take his grudge with the time you stole one of his heat tabs to warm your fucking coffee down to the goddamn grave, but for the most part they have bigger and better things to waste energy on.

“You stop gamblin’ with him,” Eugene says firmly, pointing first to Hamm, and then to Shelton. “And _you_ ,” His finger stays steady on Shelton. “Stop gamblin’ things you’ll miss.” They both make the same pinched, persecuted expression. Eugene feels distinctly like Burgie, in that moment. He finds it’s not a role he dislikes. 

They all break off to their respective beds when L’Eau heads off to report for guard duty for the night, and they find that without the buffer of another person Shelton goes right back at Hamm’s throat. 

“You gotta cut him some slack.” Eugene murmurs to Shelton, watching as the other man takes a seat on his rack and begins to ease his boots off. Their lean-to is little less than an A-frame with an olive drab tarp draped over the top, no cover to the front or back to keep them from all the bugs in the jungle. Or the watchful eyes of their comrades, Eugene thinks, as he watches Shelton mess with his bed from his position outside. Their beds are simply twin air mattresses propped far enough off the ground to make the vermin work a little harder to get to them, but after his sleepless night from the Dexedrine flanked by a handful more where he snatched what little sleep he could on the hard ground, they look heavenly. 

“I don’t gotta do shit.” Shelton replies, interrupting Eugene’s dreamy thoughts about his air mattress. He kicks his boots under his rack, and then sits again to pull his t-shirt off over his head. In the dim light of the night, he’s no more than a curly headed wraith, his big eyes red rimmed with exhaustion. His voice cracks on the next words he speaks, muttered into his lap as he drops his forehead to his hand. “I’m fuckin’ tired, boo. Don’t fuckin’ talk about that kid anymore. This ain’t the schoolyard, I ain’t gotta play nice.”

Eugene rests his elbow on the top of the lean-to, and ducks his forehead to it so he can peer in at Shelton with at least the illusion of privacy. Blocking out the rest of the world as he says, “Just ‘cos you don’t have to play nice doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”

Shelton glowers up at him, the bags under his eyes bruised looking and dark. His face is thinner than it was when Eugene first met him; his jaw and his cheekbones standing out in stark contrast to the soft, sweet wedge of his nose. In the gloom of the tent, he looks preternatural, barely there. Like a changeling, or something equally as uncanny. His hands are knotted, hanging between his knees, and Eugene finds his gaze drawn by the nervous, spidery movements of his fingers. There feels like there’s something stuck in Eugene’s chest, sharp and jabbing, and the feeling ebbs and flows as he extends a hand to press his thumb to Shelton’s cheek.

“You gonna sleep tonight?” He asks, pointedly. Shelton’s eyes slide shut under Eugene’s touch, and without the weight of that gaze, Shelton is transformed in the dim light. Suddenly, he looks as young as he is, as small and tired and hurting as Eugene knows him to be but never really _saw_. 

“Yeah.” Shelton breathes, hand coming to cover Eugene’s, to hold onto him. “As soon as you quit the lecture.”

He quits it, because it’s a lost cause anyway. Shelton will be a dick to Hamm until he stops for whatever strange, arbitrary thing it is that makes him change his mind. And Shelton looks so pale and tired in the dim light that Eugene can’t bear the thought of keeping him up any longer, not with his nagging that falls on deaf ears anyway. He wishes he could lean in close and press his lips to Shelton’s face, to his cheek, his temple. To whisper any small words of comfort he can think of, anything to make disappear that wan, haunted look on Shelton’s face. But he has to settle for this; for his hand on Shelton’s sweet, smooth face, the dragging moment of intimate silence and touch they can share before Shelton squeezes Eugene’s wrist, his eyes downcast, a silent reminder that these such times have to be kept as brief and irregular as possible. Eugene thinks of Hamm’s expression at their closeness, and then Burgie’s words; _short timer_. He drops his hand. 

“I’m gonna go take a turn around camp.” He murmurs, standing still and useless at the mouth of their shelter as he watches Shelton fish around in his pack for his insect spray. The air fills with the smell of it. “I’m feelin’ too restless to bunk down for the night.”

“Suit yourself.” Shelton says, face shiny with repellant as the light catches him. Their silence is shattered by the sudden blaring of a radio, some anti-war Dylan dirge, before it’s quickly quieted. Shelton’s eyes slide away from Eugene’s face, exhaustion etched into every line of his body. “I’m set to pass right out anyway.”

“It’s about time.” Eugene says, his words sounding awkward and stilted even to his own ears. He doesn’t know how to move past this deep, speechless _want_. Acting like he doesn’t have the feelings for Shelton that he does comes harder more times than it’s easy. It renders him immobile, robotic, uncomfortable with words because all his heart and his brain and his body want to do is curl up on that narrow little air mattress and hold Shelton close to his chest. Not stand a foot away and have a strange, oblique little conversation to try and comfort him in any way besides the way he wants. The way both of them want. Quietly, he adds, “I’ll be here when you wake up.” The unspoken _will you?_ hangs between them, and Shelton ducks his head to try and hide the tired, fond smile pulling at his lips.

“Well don’t you dare fuckin’ wake me.” He replies, no venom in his tone. He reaches out to touch Eugene’s hip, finger catching in his belt loops. His next words are quiet, genuine. “Make sure you rest up tonight. None’a that stayin’ awake worrying shit.”

“No promises.” Eugene says, wryly, and Shelton tugs on his belt loop once before releasing it, a tired smile on his thin face. 

The moon is high and bright in the sky, washing the camp out in cold grayscale as Eugene dawdles a few feet away from his and Shelton’s lean-to. It’s not that he wants a walk, but that’s easier to explain to Shelton than having to admit his need for a _distraction_. He doesn’t much want to be alone with his thoughts, and since Shelton is probably already snoring away in his rack, there isn’t much else to keep him from lying awake with his brain running over every little thing from the past couple weeks. The quiet, pleased feeling that rises in him whenever he thinks of Shelton saying, _you got under my skin_. The gut wrenching one that _short timer_ brings with it. 

He does walk, a couple of yards before he runs into Burgie, looking harried with a cigarette in his mouth. They regard each other for a silent moment, matching expressions of surprise on their faces, until Burgie draws his cigarette away from his mouth and says, “You look like you’ve got a helluva lot on your mind.”

“So do you.”

Burgie raises his eyebrows, and inclines his head. “Wanna walk?”

They walk, one ear trained to the jungle on their left, the two of them sharing a comfortable silence broken only by Burgie’s offer of a cigarette, which Eugene accepts eagerly. The night is clear and still, and the false safety of the camp has Eugene winding down a little, the nicotine and Burgie’s ever-patient presence soothing him. “Always wondered why you take these walks.” Eugene says, eyes on his feet as they stroll. “I guess it’s nice to clear your head.”

“If I don’t have half a pack of smokes and a good wander to get my head empty, I ain’t sleepin’.” Burgie mumbles, and then he coughs, and laughs. “Dirty habit. I ain’t gonna take it home with me.”

“Same here.” Eugene says, even though he knows it’s a lie. He eyes Burgie up; his square, honest face, that ever present quirk of a smile to his mouth. It seems ridiculous to think that he’s gripped with the same fears that Eugene is gripped with, that he too lies awake under the unfeeling Vietnamese night sky and worries until morning. “You got what,” He pauses, doing some quick mental math, and then clucks his tongue as he realises. “Oh, Jesus.”

“Ten months, still.” Burgie says, a deep sense of resignation in his tone. “Yeah, feels like I’ve been here longer to me too.”

“Time ain’t real here.” Eugene flicks his cigarette butt away from himself; the cherry drawing a line of sparks in the air. “Feels like I’ve been here years. Especially if I think ‘bout myself from when I got here, or back in fuckin’ basic.”

Burgie chuckles at that. “So green you’re growin’ shoots out your ass. And then you look around and you been here forever, and your buddies are gone, and you know your goddamn rifle better than your girlfriend.”

Eugene shakes his head, glancing away past the wire into the unfriendly black mass of jungle. “It ain’t forever. Everythin’ ends.”

“Not for some of us.” 

“There’s more than one way to get outta Vietnam.” Eugene says, and laughs when Burgie ducks his head and snorts.

“That’s some way’a lookin’ at it.” He says, and the two of them drop back into silence as they continue their loop of the base. Burgie lights another cigarette. Eugene slaps at a mosquito on his neck. The question he wants to ask Burgie is clamouring just at the back of his mouth, clinging to his molars, making it hard to draw the breath needs to speak the words into existence. Half of him doesn’t want to know. The other half knows that if he never finds out, it’ll drive him mad until it’s too late to do anything about it.

“I didn’t know Shelton’s date’s comin’ up.” He murmurs, finally, stuffing his hands into his pockets to quell the urge to pick nervously at his nails. Burgie makes a thoughtful noise.

“He’s never said anythin’ to you?”

“Nope.” Eugene says, eyes stuck firmly to the ground. “He’s real cagey about a lotta shit.”

“You ain’t wrong ‘bout that.” Burgie says, mildly. 

They pass Eugene and Shelton’s lean to, their circle of the camp almost completed, and Eugene did his best to try and make out Shelton’s small, sleeping form in the murky darkness inside. He can’t see anything, but they both quiet their conversation as they pass by. Eugene feels hyper-conscious of how pissed off Shelton would be if he knew they were talking about him, and he doesn’t want to give Shelton any more reason to be in a bad mood. His exhaustion has been making him snappish and easily irritated, and Hamm had seen the worst of it but Eugene didn’t want it focused on him. All he could hope was that a long night’s sleep was what he needed to set him straight.

“You know how long he’s got left?” Eugene asks, once he’s deemed them far enough away to be out of earshot. Burgie shakes his head, sticking another smoke in his mouth and lighting it before he elaborates.

“Nah,” He pauses to exhale smoke, tipping his head politely away from Eugene. “I just know he ain’t here for much longer. Surprised you don’t know, I swear you two are joined at the goddamn hip.” He laughs, and Eugene makes himself laugh along, like the knowledge that Burgie has noticed their closeness doesn’t send a tiny little chill of fear ringing through him. 

They take one last turn around camp, and split ways when they fetch back up with Eugene’s bed for the night. He eases into it, pulling his boots off his feet with a sigh that he can’t bite back. Shelton shifts in the bed opposite; a rustle of the poncho he’s wrapped himself up in, a small, sleepy noise as he stretches and then relaxes back into sleep. Eugene wants nothing more than to cross that foot of space between their beds, to curl up close to the warm shape of Shelton and hold onto him tight. His conversation with Burgie hadn’t given him the peace of mind that he’d thought it would, and now his thoughts spin around even quicker in his mind, buoyed by the confirmation that Shelton’s date is indeed up soon, and by the uncertainty of when that may be. He sleeps in fits and starts, his exhausted body battling against his overactive mind until he finally drifts off into an uneasy, but deep, sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!!


	11. Chapter 11

Eugene wakes early the next morning out of pure habit; his body as unaccustomed to sleeping any later than dawn as it’s unaccustomed to be sleeping in a bed. The sun is as barely awake as he is; everything washed out in a pale, cool dawn light. The air has a certain electricity to it that makes Eugene sure it’s going to rain, the atmosphere heavy and humid, too muggy for how early it is. Still sleep addled and yearning for a few more hours of shut eye, Eugene rolls over onto his side, dragging his dew-wet poncho up to his nose as he does so. His body sings out in a chorus of various aches and pains as he moves, that morning tradition of being reminded of just how old his body feels after four months of sleeping rougher and rougher. He groans and presses his face into the scratchy fabric of his jacket, doubling up as his pillow, and he hears a rustle, and then-

“Gene, you awake?”

He doesn’t reply right away, because he’s not completely sure of the answer. Sleep is grabbing at the edges of his mind, but something is keeping him from tumbling all the way down. Vocal cords slow to warm up, he finally croaks, “Dunno,” and cracks one eye open against the watery dawn light. Shelton is as wrapped up as him, his head sticking comically from the mouth of his poncho; his bare feet and skinny calves from the other end. His hair is wild, curls clean and dark and sticking up haphazardly from his head. “You look rested.”

He does, for once.The dark bags under his eyes still linger, but there’s a life to his gaze that has been slowly ebbing over the past couple days. His eyes are bright, and warm, settling on Eugene with something pleased resting in the curve of his smile. “Looks like I slept better than you for once.” He keeps his voice low, barely raised above a whisper, just enough to carry between the foot or so of space between their racks. It’s surprising how small the shelter feels, inside. The air is full of the smell of Shelton; the smell of his skin, and of mosquito repellant, his for once clean hair. 

Eugene wonders if he looks as dishevelled as he feels. “Hard time gettin’ to sleep.” He mumbles, eyelids weighing heavier and heavier. In the distance there comes a low rumble of thunder; Eugene feels it deep down in his bones. The air is alive with that tight, oppressive feeling that comes before storms, now. He can feel it raising the hairs on his arms, can feel it as the pressure in the air drops. That cold grey light of dawn is darkening, and Eugene knows that if he were to glance outside of their lean-to, the sky would be black with heavy, pregnant storm clouds. It reminds him of the rainy season, of drowning in swollen rivers and rice paddies, in red clay and mud. 

“Looks like those showers yesterday are gonna go to waste.” Shelton says, and sits up so he can throw himself across his rack to grab his boots. Eugene watches the play of muscles under his deep copper suntan, eyes following the long, wiry muscles of his arms as he tosses his boots under his rack, into the relative safety from the brewing storm. “We’ll be up to our asses in mud soon enough.” He drops back down into his bed with a grunt, and Eugene closes his eyes at the display of energy that he’s so sorely lacking.

“Maybe it’ll cool down.” Eugene breathes, another rumble of thunder punctuating his words. It sounds closer, and as he wonders when it’ll start to rain he hears the first patter of it on the tarp that makes up the roof of their tent. With great effort, he too drags himself up to move his pack and his clothes further into the cover of the lean-to. When he settles back down, he finds Shelton staring at him, something sly and mischievous in his eyes, in the quirk of his mouth. “What?” He asks, curling back up on his side and pulling his poncho up over his shoulder. 

Shelton shrugs, grin turning toothy and almost coy. “Thinkin’ ‘bout takin’ advantage of this early start.” His drawl is thicker, dripping slow and dark like molasses. Almost on reflex, Eugene feels a dart of heat in his stomach, just as his ears begin to redden. Shelton’s smile widens. 

“What,” Eugene hisses, watching as Shelton pushes his poncho down to his thighs, his hand coming to push under the tight waistband of the undersized pants he’d been issued yesterday. Just the fingertips, just teasing. “Right here?”

“Why not?” Shelton pushes his hips up a little, eyes hooded and blatantly amused as his gaze flicks over Eugene. The sound of the rain on the tarp almost drowns out his words. “Ain’t nobody gonna see.” 

“ _Everybody_ could see.” Eugene replies, but his eyes are glued to Shelton’s hand, to the dark hair on his chest, his stomach and the way it trails away into his pants. “It’s risky.”

“I love risky.” Shelton murmurs, and when Eugene is able to drag his eyes back to Shelton’s face, his gaze burns a hole right through him. They share a long, slowed down moment of still silence, broken only by the drumming of the rain, and then Eugene drops his gaze to Shelton’s mouth, and his smile drops into a sigh as his hand grips at the steadily hardening shape of himself through his pants. 

“You want me to touch you?” He asks, mouth dry as he watches Shelton press his hips up against his hand, head rolling to the side to spear Eugene with that heated gaze once more as he makes short work of the button fly of his pants. 

“Nah,” Shelton murmurs, barely loud enough to be heard over the increasingly noisy rain over their heads. The air still feels charged with the storm, and the next clap of thunder feels like it’s booming right over their heads. Shelton eases his cock from the fly of his pants, his thick fingers wrapped around the base of it as he squeezes at it. “Just watch me.” 

The morning has dipped so dark that Eugene feels almost safe under the gloom of the storm. He’s hard in his pants, and harder at Shelton’s words. It feels dirty and voyeuristic to be watching Shelton touching himself like this, but Eugene finds he can’t tear his eyes from his hand wrapped tight around his small, leaking cock. He wants nothing more to taste him, to swallow him down easily and have him thrust into his throat, but Eugene holds back the stream of wants clamouring at his lips. He imagines his tongue around the wet, uncut head of Shelton’s cock, just barely poking out from the tight fist he’s made to fuck up into, and the thought is so hot to him that he feels his stomach swoop with a wave of arousal. He hadn’t realised how badly he’d missed Shelton since their tryst in the whorehouse until he finds himself pressing his cock into the mattress underneath him, anything to relieve him slightly. If he was only barely clinging to wakefulness earlier, he certainly isn’t any longer.

Lightning splits the air, and Shelton laughs, pressing the crown of his sweet, curly head back into his mattress as he arches his back slightly, his laugh twisting up into a moan as he jerks at the head of his cock. Eugene’s gaze bounces from his full, open mouth, to the sweat shining at the hollow of his throat, on his chest, to his hard cock jutting from his open pants. He’s doe eyed in the darkness of the storm, hooded dark eyes burning through the gloom, electric the more Eugene watches him and wants him. It makes his stomach lurch, that fairground ride feeling, and he curves his fingers over the hard shape of himself in his clothes and squeezes when rutting into the mattress underneath him becomes not enough. It feels clandestine and borderline thrilling; Eugene is caught in that liminal junction where fear morphs into excitement, and it only makes him harder, makes him want Shelton even more. This is just another way to watch him, a step up from the long days spent gazing at his nape, at the burgeoning curls on his head, and Eugene loves nothing more than to fill himself up with every tiny detail that makes up Shelton. 

“Does it feel good?” He asks, wishing he could be breathing the words into Shelton’s open mouth. He wants to taste his sweat, his spit, put his nose to his chest and bite at his dark nipples, press his thumb to his generous pout of a top lip, and sink down into him. Thunder rolls over them, competing with the torrential rain drumming a tattoo right into the soft meat of Eugene’s mind. He thinks Shelton’s lips move on a _yes_ , but the storm drowns him out. Eugene watches as he twists his wrist on the upstroke, and his heart pounds heavy in his chest as Shelton’s eyes close, that familiar expression of pained pleasure flooding over his face as his hand skates from nipple to pelvis, pressing flat in the dark hair Eugene can just see past the open fly of his pants. He’s putting on a show, Eugene knows, but it doesn’t make what he’s watching any less exciting. The knowledge that he’s watching Shelton pleasure himself just how he likes it is what’s making Eugene so hard; it’s the intimacy and the trust, and Eugene can’t help but muffle a moan into his makeshift pillow as he watches Shelton’s hand move down, down, fingers dipping into his pants to touch his balls. “Shelton.” He says, loud enough to carry over the pounding rain, and his heart crawls into his throat as Shelton turns his head and fixes him with that hazy, fucked out green gaze.

A smile half curls his lips, and then his eyes flick down to see the heel of Eugene’s hand pressed hard to the line of himself in his pants, and Eugene is sure he can see the pulse of arousal that goes through him at that. His brows furrow, eyes darting back up to Eugene’s face, and his hand quickens as he spreads his legs. One bare foot now hangs from the side of his rack, and Eugene can’t help but notice the curl of his toes as he squeezes at the wet, red tip of his cock. Just the act of spreading his legs is enough, and Eugene grunts as he pushes his poncho off himself fully, fingers tripping over themselves and fumbling with the buttons of his fly. He hears Shelton laugh, and when Eugene glances up he’s still working his cock, pace slower as he stares Eugene down like he wants to eat him up. Eugene’s cock jumps in his pants, and he finds he can’t break eye contact with Shelton’s burning, consuming gaze, even as he’s pulling his pants down over his ass and finally, _finally_ getting a hand around where he’s hard and aching for it. 

“I missed seein’ you.” Shelton says, his murmur carrying across the tent as the pounding rain ebbs a little. He tips his hips up into his fist, idly fucking into it as his eyes rove over Eugene’s body, and Eugene feels more open and vulnerable than he ever has before. Shelton is the big bad wolf, and Eugene can see the hunger behind his eyes. “Miss that thing inside me.”

Eugene’s cock jumps at Shelton’s words, and he knows he’s flushed pink down to his nipples with how hot this whole thing is making him. Shelton knows it too, judging by the slow, smug smile that stretches across his face as Eugene starts to touch himself, eyes huge and dark as he watches Eugene lick at his palm, squeeze the head of his cock just to feel it. He feels all full up behind his sternum, breathless and overheated and already overstimulated before he’s even got his hand around himself properly. It’s Shelton’s face, his tight little waist, his wiry muscles, the hair on his stomach and the way his mouth is so open and pink and inviting as he moans at the feeling of his hand around himself. The rain picks up, and another crack of distant lightning throws the whole scene into sharp relief. Eugene already feels close to coming, as wound up as he is. He clutches at the jacket under his head, squeezing at the base of his cock until he feels less at the edge. 

“Look at me.” Shelton says, and Eugene drags his gaze back to him, cock jumping in his hand as he takes in Shelton’s debauched, dishevelled self. His hair is wild, lips red, face flushed as he grins for real, big and toothy. “Hey,” He murmurs, quiet under the rolling storm. Eugene watches his mouth move, unable to look away. “I want you to see what you’re doin’ to me.” He draws his hand from his pants, up up up until he’s sticking his thumb into his mouth, something coy and wicked in his eyes. Eugene catches a flash of teeth, his pink, wet tongue, and the body memory of that mouth around his cock is almost too much to bear. He groans, fucking up into his hand as he feels sweat bead along his hairline, feeling so wound up and pulled tight and taut and-

Shelton rubs his spit-wet thumb to the head of his cock, tipping his head back against the mattress with a showy, breathless expression of pleasure as his other hand pulls on his cock once, twice, and then he’s spilling over his stomach with a low moan he doesn’t even bother to try and cover up. His back arches as he pumps at his cock, working himself through his orgasm, and Eugene finds he can’t hold back his own moan at the sight of him. Cum in his stomach hair, jaw clenched tight as he shudders through his pleasure, eyes half-lidded and vacant but still fixed unerringly on Eugene’s face. “Genie.” He murmurs, and Eugene knows he’s still playing some sort of showy role, but he plays along with it too, cursing to himself as he jerks himself faster, his orgasm a coiled knot in his stomach that’s tangling tighter and tighter with every pass of his hand over himself, with every mental image flashing through him under Shelton’s heavy, fucked out gaze. He wishes Shelton had spilled in his mouth, or on his chest. Marked him up and made him his for the time he wouldn’t be able to see him like this. A stolen glance Shelton’s way shows his softening cock, cum caught in his pubic hair, a sleepy, pleased grin stretching loopy across his face.

Seeing Shelton’s cum all over himself like that, thinking about the noise he’d made, all shivery and sweet, has Eugene slapping his hand over his mouth as he comes hot and hard all over his stomach. His teeth sink into the meat of his thumb as he tries to keep his moan inside, blindly pushing up into the tight ring of his hand as the rain drowns out the small noises that are slipping from his mouth. He distantly hears Shelton say, _yes_ , but he too is drowned out by the rushing in Eugene’s ears, his orgasm coursing hard through him.

Rain fills the silence that follows, and Eugene drags his hands down his face, absolutely bone tired in a _good_ way, for once. The stillness settles into him, and he feels himself being lulled into a half doze by the steady drumming of the rain; his release leaving him loose and relaxed. He closes his eyes behind the cover of his hands, and then hears Shelton’s rack creak, and his grunt, the rustle of clothes. A peek from behind his fingers reveals Shelton’s face surprisingly close to his own, a happy, satiated smile slapped across his face. 

“Hey.” Eugene murmurs, Shelton’s smile so infectious that he feels a laugh bubbling up in his chest. A grin tugs at his mouth, and then Shelton ducks down to give him a quick, covert kiss, and he can’t hold back his smile any longer. His limbs feel leaden, and he can do little more than to watch Shelton strip off his undersized pants, and stretch his arms above his head until his back pops. He makes a low noise of satisfaction.

“I’m fuckin’ starving.” He says, his high spirits bleeding through into his voice, still low and sleep rough, catching in his throat. Eugene feels a halfhearted pulse of leftover arousal go through him at the sound of it. Shelton lets his hands drop to his side, one coming up to scratch through his stomach hair as he glances over his shoulder to regard the sheets of rain. “You think anybody’s up?”

Eugene rolls his eyes, stretching his arms above his head with a groan. “I think _everybody’s_ up.”

Shelton’s grin turns wicked, eyes flicking away to the rain again before he seems to make up his mind on something with a decisive click of his tongue. Eugene watches him grab his bar of soap from his pack, confusion mounting as he shoots Eugene a grin, tossing it in the air and catching it. 

“What’re you doin’?” 

The wicked smile is back. “Shower.”

Eugene watches him walk nude into the hammering rain with something akin to fond exasperation in his chest. He’s drenched to the bone immediately, feet muddy as he hops around and scrubs at himself, soap a white lather in his chest hair and trailing down his pale hips and legs. Washing away the evidence of what they’d just done. Eugene tidies up his own evidence with a pair of underpants he’d been meaning to throw away anyway, and pulls his pants and boots on to come stand at the mouth of their lean-to and watch Shelton draw a barrage of hooting and whistles as the men around them begin to spot him. 

“Hey Shelton, you’re early,” Someone cries, “Girly show’s tonight!” 

“Gettin’ the sneak peak.” Shelton yells back, his face all lit up beneath his dark, drenched hair. His eyes cut to Eugene, standing dumb and enchanted in the relative dryness of their shelter. His gaze sticks, and Eugene glances over his body, the lean, wiry line of him, the deep tan on his torso and his skinny pale legs. 

“Just like y’all do it on the bayou, huh?” Comes Burgie’s voice, and Eugene startles, breaking eye contact with Shelton to find a very wet Burgie peering out from under his helmet at Shelton.

“You’d know, huh Texas?” Shelton bites back, a smile pulling his words out of meanness. Burgie’s eyes crinkle as he grins behind the rivulets of water pouring from the brim of his helmet, and he claps Eugene on the shoulder. 

“Leave ‘im to it.” He mutters, “You’re up for duty.”

Eugene allows himself one last look at Shelton in his rare good mood before he’s snapping off a mocking little salute to Burgie, which earns him a tut and an eyeroll. He ducks into his lean-to for his rifle and the rest of his clothes, and the morning is lost to idle wandering loops of the perimeter and keeping his eyes and his ears on the treeline. Perimeter duty is good for one thing, and that is being alone with your thoughts with absolutely nothing to interrupt them. The sound of rain on his helmet is a blissful white noise, lulling him into an almost-trance as he puts one foot in front of the other. All he knows is the mud, the rain, the slippery-cold grip of his rifle in his hands. If it weren’t for the shivery anxiety that patrolling brings with it, it would be almost peaceful. Eugene loses himself in dreamy recollections of Shelton’s face from the morning; doe eyed and handsome and as tender as rotten peaches. He can almost taste it, that heavy, fermenting sweetness, sticky down his chin.

The rain eases off by noon, and the clouds part to reveal a sun so high and bright in the sky that they all dry out almost as quickly as they’d gotten soaked. Lunchtime finds Eugene powdering his poor feet as Hamm makes a pot of coffee nearby, the two of them listening to Shelton describe a particular rash of his at length.

“Ever since that tick.” Shelton says, and points at Eugene with his smoke. “The one you burned off me with your cigarette.” He shakes his head, lips pursed as he glances away. “It got me. It’s made me sick.”

Eugene’s eyes are fixed on the stove that Hamm has managed to improvise from an errant C-ration can, glazed over as he watches the hypnotic glow of the heat tab as the flame catches. The smell of coffee is lighting up his senses; and he finds he can concentrate on little else but the prospect of getting some. “You ain’t got anythin’ wrong with you.” He mutters, idly. “‘S jungle rot. Change your damn socks.”

“I know what it is.” Shelton says, dramatically, and Eugene snorts as he watches Hamm take his can off his jerry-rigged stove, and pour the coffee into his canteen. He raises it to his lips gingerly, blowing on it before taking a cautious sip. His white blond hair is sticking up in tufts from his head; dried every which way after their morning dousing. 

“Gimme some’a that.” Eugene says, and he yelps as he burns his fingers on the metal as Hamm passes it off to him. “Fuck, ouch.” He juggles it, until his skin gets used to the heat, and scalds his mouth as he drinks from it in his eagerness to get it down him. Resignation settles over Hamm’s face as Eugene passes the canteen off to Shelton, who bares his teeth in a faint approximation of a smile his way.

“Decent of ya to make coffee.” He says, and there’s a lightness about him that Eugene decides he wants to see more of. Even at the expense of Hamm; who seems to be either the red flag to the bull that is Shelton, or a never ending source of amusement for him. 

“It’s not for _you_.” Hamm says, because he never learns, and Shelton shoots him a sharp smile over the rim of his canteen.

“That must be why it tastes so damn good.” He says, and nudges Eugene with his knee, gaze amused and conspiratorial. “You can’t keep things from a sick man.”

“You ain’t sick.” Eugene says, nudging Shelton back. Shelton ignores him, eyes still on Hamm, who looks like he isn’t sure whether Shelton is pulling his leg or not.

“I’m dyin’.” Shelton breathes, and his face cracks with the grin he’d been fighting to keep in. Hamm rolls his eyes, lurching up to grab his canteen from Shelton’s unresisting hands. The coffee spills, hot over both their fingers, but Shelton just laughs even as Hamm curses in pain. 

“I don’t understand you.” Hamm says, sitting back down with a scowl. He finally takes a drink of his own coffee, severely depleted by this point. “Not one bit.”

Privately, Eugene admits the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!! and i just wanna say thank u to All who've left kudos and comments and bookmarked, or even just hit view!! i'm really excited to share more and more of this fic with y'all, thank u for following it as it gets crazier and crazier (oh there's some things to come). oh and thanks for putting up with me constantly having to break this up so weirdly, which happened Once Again with this chapter... ur saints! and i'm longwinded
> 
> oh and hey! i've been forgetting to link this for a minute but i did end up making a very quick and very surface level glossary for some of the terms u might encounter in this fic... u can find it [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bZwzyHBfubDqPPu_857TlKUn6k0iCPq3lkhKk228zWo/edit?usp=sharing)! and as always my tumblr is @ getmean, lemme know if u got any qs :~)


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy belated holidays ! and merry boxing day to fellow brits: lets get these leftovers. just a reminder that i broke this chapter up a little awkwardly due to the length of the greater scene so it might help out to re-read last chapter, but it's fully up to you and whether u remember it or not! god knows i don't lmao
> 
> enjoy!!!

Medics come around with their dailies a little while later; huge, orange CP pills that Eugene chokes down with his metallic tasting water. They get a few SP packs too, and the fresh pack of cigarettes inside puts Shelton in a good mood for the rest of the afternoon, especially when L'Eau surrenders Shelton his own. The fresh toothbrushes and soap do the same for Eugene. It’s an odd day, with a strange, dragging feeling to it that Eugene just can’t shake. Whether it was his thrilling morning, or the idle atmosphere of the camp, he can’t put his finger on it; the rest of the day feels like one prolonged in-between moment, leaving Eugene yearning dangerously for a little bit of action just to break the monotony. It's hard to switch gears, sometimes. Coming from a patrol in the jungle to the relative peace of the rear feels very much like coming in from the cold and expecting instantly to be warmed back up. Eugene is still shivering, and he knows that the others are too, and will be for some time. Normally the time it takes to adjust is the same amount of time between patrols, and so the cycle continues. If Eugene thinks about it for more than a handful of seconds, he always feels sure that he might _cry_. Silly, tired tears. It’s not how he had expected his twenty-second year on this earth to go. He’s turning twenty-three in a week, and that too is a thought he finds he cannot linger on. 

So he doesn’t. He sits, and watches anything and everything to keep his thoughts busy and to prevent turning inward and tapping into that Styx-like stream of inner neuroticism as he’s always so compelled to do. He watches Burgie stitch a uniform patch back on, watches L’Eau methodically tear the funnies from a months old newspaper, and watches Shelton get his curls trimmed back into the tight, neat cut he’d had all that time ago when Eugene had first met him, and does his best not to feel jealous about a stranger's’ hands on his scalp. The newfound barber lacks the ability to tame Shelton’s curls very well, which Eugene offers up a silent thanks for as he watches Shelton run his fingers through the close cropped hair at the back of his head, and up up up to anchor into the curls which survived on the top. He looks handsome with his fresh hair and his bare chest, the burgeoning shadow of his facial hair already threatening, despite his shave the afternoon before. 

“You like it?” He asks Eugene, who reaches out to tousle his hand through it, dislodging a few stray black hairs as he does so.

“It’s fine.” He says gruffly, and takes the opportunity to give Shelton’s nape a squeeze before dropping his hand. 

Shelton kisses him that night, bold under the cover of darkness and from getting away with what they had done that morning. His mouth tastes of beer and cigarettes, like the toothpaste he’d half heartedly swished around his mouth before spitting it into the ground outside, just moments before. Eugene slides his hand into his newly cropped hair, and the feel of the short, bristly hair on the back of his head makes him wonder what it could’ve been like if he’d kissed him like this when they’d first met. Time is pressing in on him, a constant breathless anxiety in his chest which has only worsened with the knowledge that Shelton only has some small, indeterminate time left. Knowledge Eugene hasn’t even confronted with himself; mentally shying away every time he tries.

Every time he tries to picture the two of them together after their time is up, he draws a blank. There’s no after-Vietnam for him, not yet, not now. He can’t even exist in the moment; in this moonlit, affectionate moment with Shelton’s mouth on his and his hand cupping the back of Eugene’s head so sweetly. He lives ten steps ahead of himself, ten steps just outside of his body with every sense honed to a razor’s edge and trained on the next thing that’s gonna kill him and take away any chance of a life outside of this goddamn country.

“How d’you think we’re gonna get back into normal life after this?” Eugene asks, after Shelton has retreated to his own bed. He throws his hand into the gap between them, and something huge and heavy settles on his chest when his fingers make contact with Shelton’s; reaching out just the same. “Just normal shit, like fuckin, sleeping through the night. I don’t know.”

Shelton’s fingers curl against his, thumb pressing to the very centre of Eugene’s palm as he takes his hand in his. “Why’re you thinkin’ that?” He asks, and Eugene can hear a frown in his voice. He shrugs, and then clears his throat.

“Just thinkin’.” He mutters, the question he’s been aching to ask dying before it even reaches his lips. Belatedly, he realises he doesn’t think he wants to know the answer at all. “Thinkin’ ‘bout my bed at home.” He laughs, weakly, and Shelton squeezes his hand. “Not even sure if I miss it.”

A long silence follows his words, in which Eugene stares at the blackness above him and tries to formulate the words that have been weighing so heavily on him. His hand is still in Shelton’s, elbow bent awkwardly over the side of his rack, but he daren’t move it. In the pitch black of the night, he wants that physical reminder that Shelton is still there, for however much longer that’ll be. 

“When I got outta jail, I didn’t even know how to sleep in a real bed.” Shelton says, suddenly, and Eugene is so shocked to hear him talking about that time in his life that he startles, turning his head blindly, like he’d be able to penetrate the absolute darkness between them to see Shelton’s expression. “Man, I slept on the floor of my bedroom for a month. Came back to stay at my brother’s place until it got too weird and I bounced. Ain’t spoken to him since.”

Eugene finds himself speechless, which is a dangerous position to be in when Shelton decides to talk about something he’s been so cagey about. If he doesn’t find words soon, Shelton will clam up, take ten steps back for the two he gave. “Why the floor?” He says, the first question that surfaces in his mind, and then, “You don’t speak to your brother? Or _any_ of them?”

Shelton’s fingers squeeze his; thumb pressing warm into his palm. He can almost see it: Shelton’s dirty nail, his broad thumb, pressed up over his love line, his life line. “We don’t get along,” He mutters, and it must be the veil of the night that's making him so candid. “Irish twins. Too close in age to do anythin’ but piss each other off.” He clears his throat, and then adds, “And my bed was too damn soft. Plus I spent a lotta time in solitary, and you make do with the floor or nothin’ there.” He trails off, voice twisting melancholy as he drops into silence. Eugene wishes so badly that he could see his face; he’s so difficult to decipher without those huge, expressive eyes. 

“What did you do?” Eugene asks, holding his breath in the ringing silence that follows his question. He remembers the first time he’d asked it, on the banks of the Saigon river, and how nimbly Shelton had avoided his question. He wonders if the miles and the months passed between them has made him trust Eugene any more, or if Shelton will do the same now.

“You ain’t gonna want nothin’ to do with me if I tell you.” Shelton says, finally, and there is such stark sadness in his voice that Eugene is struck dumb again. It’s easy to overlook the deep well of it in Shelton by the light of day. Distracted by his smirk, by his eyes, his half-mean words and banter and the way his gaze skitters away at the slightest provocation. Here, in the deep dark womb of the night, it’s easy. Eugene’s seen it before in the curl of his lip and the somber way he catches Shelton looking at him sometimes, but to hear it is to feel it. Like that grief he carries with him like an old talisman, but bone deep and ancient, a river of hurt running deep through the core of him. Older than the war, older than Eugene himself, with his twenty-two years to Shelton’s twenty-five. He didn’t need Shelton to say anything to know that he’d been spoon-fed sadness since he was too young to know what it was or what it would do. 

“Try me.” He mutters, because there’s nothing else to say. Nothing else to do, except open himself up to frightening ball of sadness and rage that he's beginning to understand Shelton to be. Shelton moves to draw his hand away from Eugene’s, who clutches at it, first at his thumb and then tight at his fingers. “Don’t.” He says, voice low. He hears Shelton exhale, shaky and from deep in his chest.

“Well I weren’t eighteen.” He says, and then groans, that perpetual deflecting amusement bleeding into his voice. “Jesus, you’re gonna hate me after this. I was seventeen and arrested for solicitation.” He says, all in a great rush like he can’t expel it from himself quick enough. Ripping off a Band-Aid. There’s a beat of silence, in which Eugene attempts to absorb the information, and Shelton adds, nervously, “Solicitation of...myself. I mean.”

“I get it.” Eugene murmurs, mind turning the news over and over. He isn’t sure what he had been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t that. He’d been erring on the side of a violent crime, or thievery, perhaps. _Prostitution?_ He hadn’t realised how silent he was being until Shelton tries again to slide his hand from Eugene’s. He clings on stubbornly. “I’m sorry, lemme just process that.”

“I ain’t-” Shelton stops himself, and although Eugene can’t see his face, he knows he’s struggling with what he wants to say, a scowl slapped across his brow. “I never did it again, after I got caught. It was just a fuckin’,” He pauses, obviously casting around for words that have never come easy to him. Eugene’s heart aches when his voice cracks on what he says next, a small, quiet, “Just fuckin’ survival.”

“I get it.” Eugene murmurs, and squeezes Shelton’s fingers with his own. Truthfully, he doesn't understand, and isn’t sure if he would without a lot of rumination. His mind is whirring, trying to come at this new information from any other angle than _pity_ , but finds it was impossible. No wonder Shelton is so hardened up and locked away. It's too painful to imagine him at seventeen, doing… _that_. Eugene can’t even conjure the image of a seventeen year old Shelton in his mind; the idea is absurd. Shelton seems so much that he had sprung fully formed from the world’s head, as mean and angry and sad as he is. 

“I ain’t never told anyone that.” Shelton mutters, sounding half hysterical as he laughs, muffled behind what is presumably his free hand thrown over his face. “Jesus Christ, nobody ever.”

“Not even him?” Eugene asks. “Kit?”

Shelton snorts, fingers twitching in Eugene’s grip. “He didn’t know. Couldn’t risk it gettin’ around and everyone findin’ out they got locked up with a fairy.” His voice is bitter, oddly distant. Eugene’s heart squeezes; he feels frozen, unsure about how he feels about this brand new knowledge. 

“How’d you keep that in?” Eugene asks, startled out of his silence by the idea of locking that shit down and never opening that box for anyone ever again. Eight years of sitting alone with that, of being driven to that sort of work and ultimately _imprisoned_ for it. Eugene knew that he’d go mad from it, if it was him. Here he was, in a war he all but volunteered for when he’d turned down his father’s offers to get him out of it, driven to near tears just from his own self indulgent navel gazing. “Christ,” He murmurs, and turns on his side just for the illusion of facing Shelton. The velvet black of the night stares back. “Shelton, are you okay?”

“It was a long time ago.” He says, with an edge to his voice that tells Eugene that he’s pushing the end of the conversation.

“And you went that time not tellin’ anybody.”

“You don’t have to tell people shit all the time.” Shelton snaps, frustrated. His next words are quieter, tightly measured. “It’s useless, I don’t have to be like you.”

“I don’t tell people shit.” Eugene hisses, annoyed now at Shelton drawing conclusions that don’t exist. “You even know I gotta brother serving here too? It ain’t the same, you gotta get shit like yours out in the air.”

Shelton falls silent at that, and Eugene knows that he’s pacing through the last four months of conversations with Eugene to see if he’s exaggerating. As the silence stretches, Eugene knows he hasn’t found anything. Eventually, he murmurs, “Well, I’m tellin’ you now.” His fingers ease out of Eugene’s grasp. “So don’t make me regret it.”

“I won’t.” Eugene says, voice low. His hand still hovers in the no man’s land between their beds; he wishes so badly to touch Shelton again that it feels almost physical. He wishes he could climb into Shelton’s narrow rack and curl around him, keep him from the whole wide, hard world. Shelton had hardened with it, and Eugene can’t even begin to unpack the regret he feels about that. He tries to think of Shelton before the world had sharpened him up and cut him loose, but the concepts won’t mesh in his mind. Once again, he wishes that he had any idea of Shelton outside of this whole mess of a war, even though it’s beginning to dawn on him that what he’d mistaken for saltiness at the beginning was only the tip of the iceberg. 

“I feel like you ain’t settled on it.” Shelton says, then. Eugene hears the rustle of his poncho, the creak of his bed. “It bothers you.” It’s not a question, and Eugene decides not to insult Shelton by pretending like he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

“It’s hard to think about.” He admits, rolling onto his back to lie face to face with the same darkness as before. His hands come to rest on his belly as he fiddles with his ring, nervously. “I’m tryin’ to understand, but it just it ain’t comin’ easy. I keep thinkin’ ‘bout you,” He breaks off, and makes a noise of frustration. “I dunno, ‘bout you having to do that.” He’s never seen Shelton afraid, not once. He wonders if he was afraid then. 

“I ain’t dirty.” Shelton snaps, and Eugene winces.

“That’s not what I said.”

“And I don’t wanna be pitied.” Shelton adds. “I weren’t made to do it. I would’ve done it longer if I weren’t caught; I was livin’ hand to fuckin’ mouth in New Orleans and didn’t have much skills anywhere else.” He stops, and clears his throat, voice distinctly tight. “You gotta use what you got, and just ‘cos you ain’t ever had to think like that don’t make it a sin.”

Eugene slides his ring off his finger, pressing his thumb into the face of it just to feel the smooth jet stone. “You’re right.” He says, clouds parting as he turns that over in his mind. He can’t help the pity clawing bloody ribbons at the back of his throat, but the less Shelton knows the better. “I weren’t thinkin’ of it like that.” Shelton’s defensive, so Eugene drops it, the night too late to delve further into it. Eugene feels strongly that he’s been clammed up with this terrible thing from his past so long that he’s learned to live with it; learned to smooth around the jagged edges until it’s less a pain and more of an annoyance, now. A constant reminder, hard and uncomfortable but smooth on the surface. The grain of sand buried in an oyster. “I’m sorry.” Eugene adds, uselessly, honestly. 

Shelton doesn’t respond to that, and a handful of minutes ooze by as Eugene ponders Shelton’s words and turns his ring over and over in his fingers. He knows Shelton hasn’t dropped off to sleep; he can still feel his nervous, restless energy like a beacon through the absolute darkness of the cloudy night. The sounds of the nighttime jungle fill the space their clumsy words had left, and Eugene loses himself to mapping the chittering of insects, and the rustling of the trees. Finally, Shelton speaks, his voice small and thin through the darkness. 

“Are you disgusted?”

Eugene doesn’t have the words to reply to that, every response he can muster dying a small death on his lips. All too weak, all too false. “Jesus.” He mutters, and draws his hands down his face. “Would you believe me if I said no?”

Shelton laughs, a sad, hollow sound. “Probably not.”

“Well I ain’t.” Eugene says, and his words are met with a snort from Shelton. Exasperated, he snaps, “Oh c’mon, stop feelin’ sorry for yourself. That ain’t you.”

“It might be.” Shelton says, petulant, and then, “I dunno why you wouldn’t find it disgustin’.”

Eugene sighs, pressing his fingers into his eyes until he sees fireworks. Shelton’s pigheadedness, once again. “I dunno how else to tell you.” He mutters, feeling so helpless and useless laid there in his rack. The space between them has become a yawning chasm for how distant Shelton feels to him; Eugene can practically hear him retreating from the conversation, curling back up with that smoothed over ball of pain. In one impulsive movement, Eugene throws his poncho from himself and rises from his bed, moving to kneel down next to the vague shape of Shelton, who’s curled onto his side with his back to Eugene. “Hey,” He murmurs, and touches his hand to the warm skin of Shelton’s bare back. “I dunno how else to tell you.”

If Eugene has learned anything from the past months in this war, is that words often fail when it comes to Shelton. Which is why, when Shelton rolls over onto his back, Eugene does nothing but cup his face in his hands, stroking his thumbs over the high juts of his cheekbones. Near silent, Shelton sighs, and Eugene traces his fingers over his face, seeking out his expression in the darkness. Eyes closed, that full pout of his mouth drawn tight with whatever unknowable feeling Eugene’s touch is bringing with it. Eugene knows that what Shelton needs isn’t his reassurances in the form of words, but instead this; Eugene’s lips ghosting his forehead, his hands cupping his jaw, fingers resting comfortably behind his ears. It’s uncomfortable kneeling on the hard ground, but Eugene doesn’t move, doesn’t dare disrupt the delicate peace as Shelton’s hand comes to settle in Eugene’s hair, their foreheads tipping together. 

Shelton is first to break the silence, and when he speaks his words are measured, quiet. He sounds tired, marrow deep exhaustion, and his fingers flex on Eugene’s nape; nervous, twitchy. “‘S still me, though. I’d do it again if I had to.” He turns his face away, pressing his nose to Eugene’s temple. “I just want you to know that.”

It’s so far outside of Eugene’s world that all he can do is nod, and clutch at Shelton’s hair. He doesn’t understand it, he _can’t_ understand it, and he supposes that is what’s making Shelton so defensive of it. He’s never felt so lucky for the life he grew up in, and the urge to hide Shelton away and take him away from a world where he would be forced to solicit himself is all consuming. He knows Shelton would resent him for thinking that, just as much as he knows he’ll never be able to abandon the urge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u reading :~) lemme know what you think! heavy topics for this boxing day evening but that's life sometimes when you're snafu and re-learning how to be vulnerable


	13. Chapter 13

The next morning finds Eugene bleary eyed and slow from his late night, rising late in the morning, for once. He experiences that familiar jolt of anxiety that he’d had in Saigon at Shelton’s empty bunk when he's met with the same sight, but a glance outside shows him sitting with Burgie and Hamm. The three of them are clustered around Hamm’s makeshift stove; Eugene stands at the mouth of their shelter for a moment to watch them, undetected. Shelton’s dark head leaned in close to Burgie and Hamm’s blonde ones, the three of them rapt and poking at the stove; it’s a sweet picture, and one Eugene doesn’t yet want to interrupt. 

“Well I sure as hell ain’t eatin’ it cold.” Shelton says, leaning back, and as he does so he catches sight of Eugene out of the corner of his eye. He freezes up for just a second, but Eugene is so accustomed to watching him for any clue to what he’s thinking that he doesn’t miss it. The slight widening of his eyes, the way he tucks his lower lip under his teeth as his gaze flicks over Eugene. An electric little jolt of fear strikes through him, icy hot, and then Shelton relaxes, and he inclines his head, a silent invitation to join them. 

“Genie’s finally joined the land of the livin’.” He drawls, eyes following Eugene closely as he grabs his boots from under his bunk before coming to sit with them all. What looks like pork and beans is simmering ineffectually in the canteen over top the dying heat tab, and Eugene pulls a face at it that Burgie matches. 

“Wouldn’t’ve if I knew you were cookin’, Shelton.” He says, and Shelton just snorts and ducks his head, something unreadable and reserved in his expression. Burgie glances back and forth between the two of them, curious.

“Heat tabs got wet yesterday.” Hamm offers, jumping right into the silence. For once, Eugene is grateful for his inability to read the room. “Shelton cracked open a claymore but it ain’t the same.”

“I was against it.” Burgie says, quickly, as Eugene shoots him an exasperated look. “You know he don’t take no for an answer.”

“I didn’t get spanked enough as a kid.” Shelton says, an over-exaggerated pout on his face. His eyes flick over to Eugene, gauging his reaction, and a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth when Eugene rolls his eyes. 

“Well you’re sure makin’ up for that now.” He says, and Shelton drops his gaze, that smile still curving his mouth. Their late night conversation seems otherworldly by the light of day; it’s easy to act like it never happened, like Shelton had never been so vulnerable. _Are you disgusted?_ Eugene’s heart squeezes at the memory. 

They manage to get breakfast and a smoke in them before they spot their LT, Davis, making a beeline for them, and Hamm makes a low noise of dread at the sight of him. He’s a lifer through and through, having fought in Korea before this; halfway to Asiatic and greying at the temples. It's unnatural, seeing a man so old to be grey in war. His face is set, and Eugene eats another spoonful of his lukewarm food, sure it’d be the closest thing to a warm meal he’ll have for the next few weeks. 

“Well this can only be bad news, huh.” Eugene murmurs, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Burgie knocks him with his elbow.

“Shuddup.”

“Damn,” Shelton says, plucking his smoke from his mouth as their LT approaches. “And I just got my damn feet dry.”

Burgie throws him an exasperated look, just as Davis walks up. “Mornin’ boys.” He says, with the tone of a man who has some bad news he’s about to relish breaking to them. They echo the greeting back with all the enthusiasm of dead men, and he grins. His bottom lip is fat with the wad of dip stuck in there, and he spits on the ground before turning to Burgie and saying, “Pulling point today, Burgin?”

The muggy morning practically dips cold with the looks that Eugene, Shelton and Hamm level at Burgie, who clears his throat awkwardly, avoiding their gaze. “That’s right.”

Davis inclines his head, and pulls a map from his pants side pocket before squatting down next to Burgie, smoothing the paper out onto the bumpy ground. He points, and all their eyes follow. Eugene’s last warm meal is forgotten at the prospect of some _information_. To know what the plan that day is beyond a brushed off, “Jus’ a search and destroy, Private,” is as valuable as gold. 

“Plan for the day should be pretty straightforward.” Davis mutters, and he flashes nicotine stained teeth Burgie’s way as the other man snorts. “Alpha Company spotted some fire comin’ from a ville a few klicks north of here, ‘n the higher-highers want us to head on over, do a little recon, clear out whatever needs to be cleared out.” He drops a wink at that, which makes Eugene’s stomach turn. 

“Zippo raid.” Shelton breathes, turning his head so his mouth is close to Eugene’s ear, too quiet for the LT to pick up. Eugene shivers at the closeness, and it takes everything in his power to keep his eyes on the map in front of Burgie and his hands in his lap. 

“Any problems?” Davis asks, plucking the map back up to fold away and tuck back out of sight. “Questions?”

“They ain’t gonna order any artillery over there?” Burgie asks, a frown crinkling his broad, honest face. Davis, who is already straightening up, shrugs, and spits. 

“CC doesn’t deem it necessary. The ville got raided a couple months back; bastards had a huge store of rice and only two guards covering it, plus a lotta civilians.” He grins, something sharp and unpleasant, and his eyes swing around to Eugene. He can’t hide his scowl, and just drops his gaze as the LT’s lingers. “Ain’t nobody left. VC usin’ it as a hideout now are gonna get a nasty surprise.” 

“When’re we heading out?” Hamm asks.

“Waitin’ on a LOH to keep on standby for when we reach the ville, but within the hour, I reckon.” He tips his helmet back off his face, and squints up at the sun, jaw working around his dip like an animal chewing cud. “Yeah, ain’t got much time to waste if we don’t wanna be pullin’ up short tonight.”

He hands off a smaller map to Burgie; their location and the village marked out in a slash of grease pencil. As soon as the man is out of earshot, the three of them round on Burgie, who closes his eyes, an expression of bland acceptance on his face.

“You knew we were headin’ back out?” Hamm cries, as Shelton plucks the map from Burgie’s unresisting grasp for a closer look. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I’m platoon sergeant.” Burgie mutters, snatching the map back from Shelton, who puts up a little more struggle than he had. “Of course I know.” His face is set in a guilty scowl, and he drops his gaze, avoiding their eyes.

“Coulda warned us.” Eugene says, “At least so I coulda gotten a shower in before we had to saddle up.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Burgie says, flapping his hand as he rose from his seat on the ground. “Y’all are worse off than me, I know.” That shuts up their grumbling, which Burgie levels a half-hearted grin at them for. He points at them. “But remember who’s pullin’ point today, boys.”

“Do us all a favour and leave that lifer a mine to stumble over.” Shelton mutters, toying with the laces of his boots. Burgie makes an exasperated noise.

“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that.” He says, before turning to Eugene. “If you really wanna quick rinse, now’s your time. God knows it’s swilling off in rivers from here on out.”

He does shower, though it makes little difference after getting suited up to head back out; being loaded down with his clutch belt, his web gear, and his pack means that Eugene is sweating through his shirt before they do little more than mill around waiting for the okay to move on out. Shelton, an impish grin on his face, catches his pinky finger in a loose D-ring hanging from Eugene’s belt, and tugs him off balance a little.

“Trussed up like a turkey.” He murmurs, and tugs again just to see Eugene wobble, his centre of balance thrown off by his heavy pack.

“Cut it out.” He snaps, irritable under the hot sun and the sweat sliding down his face under his helmet. He smacks Shelton’s hand away, only to watch it come creeping back. “C’mon.”

“Shut up.” Shelton says, amicably, hooking his finger into the ring and tugging until Eugene sways into him again. His green eyes are heavy lidded, ringed with red from their sleepless night. “You smell good.” His voice is pitched low enough that the men standing nearby probably couldn’t have heard, but Eugene elbows him just the same. “Ow!”

“What’s gotten into you?” Eugene hisses, and Shelton shrugs and glances away, down at his hands as he messes with the fresh pack of cigarettes he’d been hoarding since he’d gotten them. 

“Haven’t thanked you.” He says, quiet, and slides a cigarette from the pack. Eugene watches his face, or at least what he can see of it beyond Shelton’s helmet. His mouth twists, uncomfortable. “Feels like all you ever learn ‘bout me is somethin’ fucked up.”

“Yeah,” Eugene says, and Shelton’s eyes flick up to his, wary. “You ain’t wrong.” Then he grins, and relief dawns on Shelton’s face as he scoffs and turns away, hiding his smile behind a cigarette as he ducks his head down to light it. 

“I promise I’m more than it.” He mumbles, and glances away to follow the path of a Huey flying low and loud over their heads. Smoke curls from his nostrils, hanging heavy in the still, muggy air before it's whipped away in the path of the bird. “Feels like it sometimes, but I ain’t all the shitty things that’ve happened to me.”

Eugene lets Shelton hook his finger in that hanging D-ring again, just because it seems like he likes the closeness, the barest flirtation with danger. “I know that.” He says, softly. “I wanna learn about the shitty parts just as bad as the good parts.” He knows what he’s saying is straying far closer to something romantic, something neither of them have really identified or discussed. It’s impossible to label what is blooming between them in their situation, and almost as difficult if they weren’t at war in a strange land. Eugene takes solace in the squeeze of his heart at Shelton’s lips pursed around his cigarette, in the way Shelton’s thumb creeps under the strap of his clutch belt to settle there for a moment. “I wish I knew you before all this.” He adds, that age old sentiment. Shelton’s lips quirk at his words.

“You always say that.”

Eugene shuffles his feet, and after a moment of hesitation, plucks Shelton’s cigarette from his mouth. “You don’t feel the same?” He asks, taking a drag as Shelton’s eyelids lower, amused and annoyed in equal parts. 

Shelton steals his smoke back, but doesn’t move away, his thumb still tucked comfortably close to Eugene’s body, to the sweat beginning to form under his belt. “It’s a pretty human urge to want somethin’ like that, I guess.” His smile is coy, eyes bright in the shadow of his helmet. Eugene feels breathless, all caught up in the fantasy of the moment. So much so that he barely hears their LT calling for the platoon to fall into line; he’s too caught up in what’s hidden in Shelton’s expression, just right below the surface. "Don't we all wanna know, and be known?"

“So you do?” He asks, and Shelton just smiles, that pleased, toothy grin of his, as he turns away from Eugene and into line. “Shelton?”

The heat only gets worse as the sun inches higher and higher into the sky, and by noon Eugene feels absolutely drenched in sweat, the salt of it stinging in every mosquito bite and tiny cut that he has on his body. It’s miserable, _he’s_ miserable; footsore and overheated to the point where his skin is prickly with it, like ants crawling all over him. They’re silent, a sea of grim faces tramping in single file along the path carved out by Burgie, a few yards in front. Eugene’s hands are clamped tight around the stock and hand-guard of his rifle, eyes swivelling in his head as he eases back into the familiar state of over-alertness that being back onto patrol brings with it. The switch isn’t hard to make; easier than ever, in fact, and Eugene loses a long time to worrying over what that exactly means. He thinks of Shelton, sleeping on the floor of his room at home, and wonders when the switch gets flicked so fully that there’s no turning back. 

Word comes down the line that they’re taking a break, that they’ve run up against a thick wall of foliage that Burgie, on point, and whoever’s playing his slack man that day, are going to have to hack away at. Eugene and the men around him waste no time in lighting a cigarette, falling out of their single file line to huddle together and shoot the shit. 

“Hey, can I have one of those?” Hamm asks, eyes on Shelton’s pack of smokes as he taps it against his palm. He snorts.

“No.” He sticks one in his mouth, and his gaze slides over to Eugene. “Ask Genie.”

“Not a chance.” Eugene mutters, and rolls his eyes when Hamm pulls a face. “I said no!”

“C’mon,” He pleads, sidling up to Eugene. “Mine got wet in that storm. Call it a Thanksgiving gesture.”

“I’ll be thankful for when you ain’t around to annoy the shit outta me, boot.” Shelton quips, passing a cigarette over to Hamm despite it. “Find ya own. Don’t keep them all in your goddamn helmet strap.” He knocks his knuckle against Hamm’s helmet, and then retreats a few steps to smoke his cigarette in peace. Both Eugene and Hamm are watching him with an expression of complete bemusement.

“Were you just nice to _Hamm_?” L’Eau asks, and Shelton slides his gaze to him as he takes a drag from his cigarette.

“Gives me more room to be an ass to you, Jay.” He murmurs, coolly. Eugene looks down at the ground to hide his smile, and then gets a cuff around the head from a grinning Shelton when he can’t hold back his snort of laughter a moment later.

And so the day wears on. They follow a trail that’s been used within the last week; by friend or foe they’re not sure, or not told, and it beats battling through elephant grass and bamboo by a wide mile. It skirts alongside the jungle, snaking on and on while they sweat and grumble, until it fetches up at a broad, slow moving river that has all the men nudging each other excitedly at the sight of. After hours with the heat trapped between the canopy and the jungle floor, with heavy packs getting heavier by the minute and helmets doing little but to create a whole new sweat source, stumbling upon a river feels very much like stumbling upon the gates of heaven, right at the end of a worn dirt path. 

Another break, another cigarette, as Burgie and the LT move upstream to take a better look at the logistics of crossing the river safely. Eugene hands Hamm a cigarette this time; Shelton’s eyes following the whole exchange.

“Makin’ the rounds, huh.” He sucks his teeth as he watches Hamm light up. “Don’t be expectin’ another off me.”

“You’re too much hard work.” Hamm replies, and Shelton snorts, caught off guard by his reply. Eugene lights his own cigarette, eyes on the inviting river water as he imagines dunking his overheated head into it.

“He grows on ya, doesn’t he?” He says, nudging Shelton and gesturing to Hamm like he isn’t even there. The kid scowls, and Shelton leans his shoulder up against Eugene’s, cigarette dangling from his fingers and wrist propped in the air just so as he looks Hamm up and down. He colours under their gazes. 

“Sure,” Shelton drawls, “Like a rash.”

Eugene watches a bead of sweat roll down Shelton’s temple, and presses down the quick, mad urge to wipe it away for him. This close, he can see the freckles on Shelton’s tawny skin, and the tiny crescent moon of a scar from the elephant grass all that time ago, just a hair paler than his sun darkened complexion. Such a small thing, for such a lot of blood. The sun is so high above them that Eugene is beginning to feel heatsick from it, and he drinks down almost half his canteen of water before they get the news down the line that they’re to cross the river.

The first thing Eugene does when he wades into the brown, thigh deep water is to scoop it up in his helmet and dump it over his head. The relief is immediate, breathtaking, so he does it again, holding his rifle out of the way as he closes his eyes against the dirty, blessed water. When he turns to the side, blinking water from his lashes, he sees several other men doing the same. L’Eau’s mousy hair is slick to his head, his great big ears sticking out as he happily douses himself again. The high noon sun is catching every errant water droplet, transforming the mud brown river into something gold plated, the light hitting every ripple just so. The sight tears Eugene in two as he wonders if he’ll ever be able to reconcile the beauty and the ugliness of this country. Even the air feels ancient, sometimes. He knows well enough that they shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be armed to the teeth and hunting farmers for tallies on a helmet, shouldn’t be splashing around in a stream while children run from napalm. But then the LT gets them moving, and Eugene is tugged forward again by that invisible thread of duty, and the beauty of the river is lost to the fear of another dimly lit jungle path.

He drops an iodine tab in his canteen, and swills the lukewarm, metallic water around his mouth in an attempt to rid himself of that dry, nauseous feeling in his gut. He knows it’s the CP pills, the aftereffects so goddamn unpleasant that he knows Hamm skips them despite the risk of malaria, but Eugene can’t help but feel that the nausea is something karmic. There’s only so much a person can get away with, and Eugene feels like he’s nearing the end of that particular tether, and fast. A few paces later, they hunker down under a scattered hail of bullets, and Shelton’s hand finds the sweaty nape of Eugene’s neck as he pushes him down to the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!! and happy new year, here's to more and more of this drama-ridden fic in 2019 :^)


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's gotten to the point where i have to stop apologising for breaking up chapters awkwardly bc it's just gonna HAPPEN and i'll sound like a broken record. we're really hitting the part of the fic which the scenes are just very very long now so there's no good way to break them up! i promise, otherwise chapters are gonna be like 7k words long which sounds fantastic I KNOW but it's not sustainable, and this way you get a new chapter every week :^) and i get time to write more!
> 
> anyway, i recommend like a skim of the last few paragraphs of the last chapter just to situate yourself :^) this chapter is a doozy

When they stop for a rest that night, Eugene sleeps fitfully, lightly, his head pillowed on Shelton’s thigh. It raises no eyebrows; they’re far enough from civilisation and morals and _women_ that the forty or so grown men are steadily reverting to the easy affection of childhood. At one point, he comes to from an awful dream that morphed and merged so completely with the sounds of the forest around them that Eugene wakes all at once. A hand strokes sweaty hair back from his brow, and he grasps it before he can think, hard enough to feel bones grind in his grip. Shelton, to his credit, doesn’t make a sound. 

“Gene.” He breathes, not moving an inch. Eugene doesn’t budge either, his mind still caught halfway between that dream and the real world. Shelton’s bony wrist in his grasp. The image of him bleeding out in the pouring rain, into the loamy, black soil under an unflinching sky. Eugene’s hand tightens, and that’s when Shelton makes a noise of pain; a sharp inhale. “Gene, let go.”

Everything clicks into place at once, and Eugene releases Shelton, trying not to feel hurt by how quickly he whips his hand away from him. The last dregs of the dream are lingering, and Eugene draws both his hands down his face in an attempt to scrub himself clean of it. The fingers of his left hand smart, aching in that particular way that tells him just how hard he was gripping Shelton. “Shelton, Jesus.” He murmurs, voice dropped down so low he’s sure even Shelton can barely hear him. “I’m sorry.”

After a moment of hesitation, Shelton’s hand comes back to sweep its way through the hair at the front of his head. “No sweat.” He replies, voice quiet and steady through the black night. 

Eugene distinctly feels like that brief, insignificant firefight earlier in the day had knocked a screw loose in him. Or maybe that screw had been slowly inching its way loose for a long time now, and all it needed was a premature plunge back into combat, and a little bit of danger to grease its way before it dropped. Shelton’s hands in his hair soothe him enough to catch an hour or so more of shut eye, and then it’s up with the dawn to another day sidestepping snakes and mines and goddamn VC.

Patrol wears on closer to three days before they come across any sign that previous fighting had happened here. The jungle they’d been passing through after they had crossed the river was pristine and silent; visibly untouched by human hand, at least to their eyes. Eugene couldn’t imagine what may lie beyond the thick foliage, or even under their boots. He keeps his eyes peeled for spider holes, and his hand wrapped firmly around the pistol grip of his M-16.

A ripple goes down the line as they start noticing certain things in the jungle around them; holes in the canopy over their heads, broken trees and churned up earth and once, shrapnel, embedded deep in the trunk of a huge palm. Remnants of the last time they had forced their way into this place. Quietly, Burgie steps from the path, and the rest of them follow. 

“Gettin’ close.” Shelton whispers, eyes alert and focused straight ahead. “Stay near.”

“I can handle myself.” Eugene whispers back, a little irritable. Shelton looks set to argue, but then the line grinds to a halt, and he pops his head up from the half-crouch they had all fallen into to try and see what’s happening the ten men or so ahead. Eugene watches his face, the tight line of his jaw and the way his gaze is jumping from person to person.

“What’s goin’ on?” Hamm asks, clueless and quiet behind them. Eugene throws a hand back, shushing him.

“Burgie’s breakin’ from the trail.” Shelton says, voice hushed. “Guess we’re nearer than we thought.”

“Wish we got a goddamn map too.” Eugene breathes, overheated and annoyed by how often they were all kept in the dark. He hears the crackle of the radio, the very faint rustle of trees and the rhythmic noise of machetes burying themselves into bamboo. He slaps at a biting bug on his forearm, and Shelton kisses his teeth, annoyed as he sinks back and lights himself a cigarette.

“Lotta fuckin’ waitin’ with no news.” He murmurs, eyes downcast as he ashes between his boots. He spits. “Dunno why they don’t just order some artillery now. Got the LOH hangin’ over us just to pop off a couple smoke grenades and fuck off, fucking useless.” 

“Naw, gunships too.” L’Eau offers, and Shelton rounds on him.

“For an empty village?”

“Ain’t empty, idiot.” L’Eau mutters, “Remember what the LT said?”

L’Eau is then saved from the response that Eugene can see Shelton working up to by Burgie’s return. He goes straight for the RTO, and they’re huddled close enough around to hear what he says to the man on the other end of the hook. _Half dozen huts all lookin’ to be intact_ \- and a pause, before, _Not a sight, sir._ Eugene holds his hand out for the last few drags off Shelton’s cigarette, and silently he passes it over. His focus on Burgie isn’t far from unusual; Eugene has always known Shelton to be pretty on the ball in a combat situation. Now, Eugene wonders if it’s because of the time he’s got left, and wonders again just how short he is if he’s worrying about getting dusted before his date. Eugene’s own date feels so far off and formless that he barely thinks of it, except to tally mark his helmet with his days served. It’s certainly not on his mind in this sort of situation; crouched and sweating with his heart beating double time in his chest, picking up when the LT looks down the line and makes a motion with his hand. _Move out_.

Eugene pitches his cigarette butt away from him, and the next few moments come through only in snapshots of disjointed, chaotic motion.

The lazy beating of the LOH’s rotor blades. Rising smoke from the grenades, like a thick fog, consuming the ground and the trees and the sky. Eugene catches Shelton’s face for a heartbeat, something unsettling and hawk-like in his expression before they plunge forward into the smoke and he’s lost to him. It’s a sightless, breathless opera; the rattle of those goddamn AK-47s sounding off against the pop of their own rifles, a boom that splits the air as a grenade detonates. Eugene feels flying dirt and grit and rocks hit his face, and he ducks his head down against his arm with his eyes squeezed shut until the ground settles. His hand _aches_ from gripping his rifle so tight, but he refuses to fire blind for fear of hitting Hamm, Burgie, L’Eau. _Shelton_. His stomach flips, sickly, and he runs in an uncomfortable half crouch for a couple meters before fetching up behind the large, indistinct shape of a thatch hut. Sweat is running so heavy into his eyes that they burn with it, and swiping at it only rubs it further into the cuts and scrapes the fallout from the grenade had gotten him. 

“Smoke’s clearing!” Someone yells, a thick Boston accent to his left. Eugene flinches, the sound closer than he was expecting, but when he peeks around the side of the hut he can see it’s true. More sweat in his eyes, but when he wipes at it his fingers come away bloody. His heart is beating so hard and fast he can feel it in his teeth. 

“Where the fuck is the fire comin’ from?” He shouts, to anyone who will listen, and then ducks back around the hut as another rattle of machine gun fire comes out of nowhere. Nowhere and everywhere at once. He presses his hand to the top of his helmet and waits it out, cursing the goddamn LT for not ordering artillery like he should’ve done. “No-one left my ass.” Eugene mutters to himself, peering out from behind the hut once more.

The smoke has almost completely cleared by now, enough so that Eugene can just about make out the rough looking bunker that Burgie had obviously missed in his quick inspection of the village. It’s bomb-blasted half into rubble, pitted with deep, black scars from shrapnel and tucked away just out of the clearing of the village, slowly being reclaimed by the creeping jungle. Eugene can’t blame him for missing it, even if it does sit acidic in his gut. With a sudden, sinking sense of dread, Eugene realises that if he can see that, then the enemy can almost definitely see _him_. 

A glance to his side shows a few other Marines crouched under cover just as he is; Eugene strains his eyes for Burgie, Hamm, and then spots Shelton a few feet away with a lurch of his heart. He’s bleeding, a bloody lip by the looks of it, all down his chin and over his jaw. His eyes are wide above the gore, white all around the green ring of his iris. They make eye contact for a brief, time freezing moment, and then Shelton’s head turns just as another hail of bullets shatters the air. It seems to happen in slow motion, the next few seconds stretching and dragging out before Eugene’s horrified eyes, unable to tear his gaze away as he spots Hamm dash out from behind the hut he was crouching behind with Shelton. 

“Hamm!” Eugene yells, voice cracking as he strains to be heard over the sound of firing. He can see Shelton doing the same, his mouth open on a soundless yell as Hamm whips his head around, distracted for one dreadful, integral moment. Shelton’s face is contorted; anger and panic as he throws an arm out to catch in Hamm’s flak jacket, and Eugene doesn’t need to even look at Hamm to see the moment that he’s hit. Shelton’s face wipes of all emotion for a second that seems to last a lifetime, and Eugene watches, helpless, heart in his throat, as Hamm is hit again. Blood blooms crimson on his chest, on his shoulder, and the sight of it is suddenly enough to unstick Eugene from his hiding spot. His pulse is pounding so hard in his ears that everything else drops to the background; all he can focus on is Hamm’s bloodied hands scrabbling at his torso, and the expression of pure, blank shock on Shelton’s face. His hand is still clutched in Hamm’s jacket, and as Eugene darts across the short space of danger between the huts they’re hidden behind, he sees Shelton grasp at Hamm’s arms, expression twisting with effort as he pulls Hamm out from the line of fire. 

Eugene all but tumbles into the relative safety behind the hut which Shelton and Hamm are sprawled in the shade of. Up close, Hamm’s face is grey, eyes darting between them as he heaves ragged breath after ragged breath, one hand clutching desperately at the knee of Shelton’s pants as he shrugs his shirt from his shoulders to press to Hamm’s wounds. “Oh, Jesus.” Eugene mutters, hands hovering uncertainty over Hamm. He meets Shelton’s gaze, and the emotion in them is so disengaged and harrowing that Eugene scrambles away from it, marks it down as unreadable so he doesn’t have to linger on it. Slowly, impercibly, Shelton shakes his head. Between them, Hamm groans, and Eugene’s stomach lurches as he spots the blood bubbling at the corners of his mouth. 

“We need a fuckin’ medic.” Eugene mutters, turning blindly to yell, “Hey, we need a fuckin’ medic over here!” Under his hands, Hamm coughs and chokes, his hand coming up to scrabble at Eugene’s. “Hey, it’s okay.” He mutters, trying to sound as soothing as possible with the panic rising in his throat. Another glance over his shoulder makes his stomach drop, as he spots the familiar black uniform of a VC, fifteen yards away and somehow not spotted by anybody else. He curses, and shakes Hamm’s hand from his own as he scrambles for his rifle, heart thudding so hard in his throat that he’s sure he’s going to be sick. 

The rifle jams, and Eugene swears, smacks the flat of his palm into the forward assist in a desperate attempt to get the round seated right. He tries again, frustrated tears springing to his eyes as the whole damn situation settles on him, and he lets Shelton yank it from his hands a moment later. He gives it one hard, practised blow with the heel of his hand, and passes it back to Eugene with something single minded and absent in his expression, bloodied hands having left smears of it on the stock, on the handguard. His hands go back to pressing on Hamm’s heaving chest, to stem the fresh blood that had welled up in the second he had taken his hands away, and Eugene hefts his rifle, sights it, and fires. 

The VC drops to the ground; crumples like a puppet with cut strings. It happens too quick for Eugene to feel any way about it, though he’s sure that will come later. But not now, not when Hamm is bleeding out next to him, his blood soaking into the dry soil just as the now dead VC’s is. He glances to the side, and is shocked to see Shelton’s head pressed to Hamm’s chest, and for a long moment there is no sound but the dying down firefight. Nothing until Shelton swears, something bitterly angry and upset in his tone as he moves away from Hamm, and Eugene can’t work out what’s happening until Shelton draws his shirt away from Hamm’s wounds and shoves away from his body. He won’t meet Eugene’s eyes. The right side of his face is bloody, and Eugene knows that it’s not his own, not like the gore on his lips and in his teeth when he sneers, “Too fuckin’ late,” to the harried medic who rushes over a few minutes later. Shelton’s knees are pressed to his bare chest, like he can’t stand to be any closer to Hamm’s body.

Eugene can’t look at Hamm. He can’t look at the VC he killed. All he can do is stare at his killing hands and swallow back the bile that so badly wants to come up. He and Shelton smoke a cigarette while they watch medics bag up Hamm’s body, and the silence between them is deadened, somber. Shelton hasn’t said a word since he’d spoken to the medic, but Eugene can sense him stewing. L’Eau cries when he sees Hamm’s body, and it’s easy to remember how close they’d been in age, at that. Hamm’s small, pale body. L’Eau’s honest, childish tears. Burgie doesn’t seem to have any words to conjure; he just claps Shelton on the shoulder, and murmurs, “You tried.”

It’s not enough, and Eugene can see that burning in him as he sits silent and still, smoking cigarette after cigarette as they all mill around and lick their wounds. His chin is still bloody, and his face, a confusing mix of blood that’s his and blood that isn’t. 

“He knew what he was gettin’ into out here.” The LT says to the world at large, and Eugene feels such a wave of sadness wash over him that he feels dizzy with it. At his side, Shelton is tense, hackles raised.

“He was drafted.” Eugene says, voice rough as he finally finds it again. The LT’s gaze swings around to him, and there’s something cool and indifferent in it that deadens that sadness, pins Eugene down to the ground with its weight. Voice stronger, he says, “He was drafted, sir. He never had a choice.”

Davis’ jaw works, lip bulging around the wad of dip in his mouth. “So?”

Like a switch flipped in him, the sadness morphs quickly into anger. Eugene clenches his fists by his sides, the rattle of Hamm’s breath in his chest all he can hear. “So maybe he didn’t know what he was gettin’ into.” He bites out, taking a step toward the LT as the rest of the platoon watches on. “So it didn’t matter if he did or not, ‘cause he didn’t make the choice to come here in the first place.”

The LT’s gaze hardens. “Well we cleaned out that bunker, and now we’re gonna burn the village to the goddamn ground.” He smiles, razor thin, and adds, warningly, “Try and look on the bright side, Private. Gotta crack a few eggs to make an omelette.” His grin widens. “Think LBJ himself said that one.”

Eugene’s anger spills over, and he finds himself snapping, “Jesus, you really don’t give a shit about any of us,” before he can try and school his thoughts. It’s like word vomit, and Hamm’s death seems to have brought it all heaving right up. Eugene couldn’t stop himself if he wanted to. “Not that it ain’t any surprise. I ain’t known a single LT who saw us as anythin’ but goddamn cannon fodder; somethin’ new to scrape off the floor every couple weeks.”

The silence that follows his words is deafening. Eugene hadn’t realised he’d taken another step forward until Davis’ finger jabs painfully at his chest, forcing him back a pace. “Settle down.” He mutters, voice like ice. His eyes flick around the circle of men that had gathered, watching their exchange, and then back to Eugene. “Tensions are high, boys.” He turns his head to spit, and Eugene can’t help his lip curling in disgust at it. “So I’m gonna ignore what you said, but Sledge?” He takes a step forward, nicotine browned teeth on show as his mouth twists with derision. His finger finds its place pushed firmly and painfully into Eugene’s sternum. “Do. Not. Fuck. With. Me.” Every word is punctuated with a jab of his finger, the final one so hard that Eugene stumbles a step back. He feels a hand grasp his elbow, steadying him, and a glance over his shoulder finds Shelton at his side, glowering. “Do you understand?” Davis asks.

Eugene doesn’t reply, just cuts his eyes away to settle his gaze painfully on the black body bag the medics had placed on a stretcher, ready to be shipped out and never seen again. _At least he never has to see this goddamn place again_ , Eugene thinks, and when the LT repeats his question, Eugene snaps, “Yes, sir.” His grief has transformed easily into annoyance, and Eugene finds himself glad for it. Anger is an energy, and he spends the next ten minutes repeating that to himself until his hands stop shaking with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! SORRY BOUT IT!!!


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> v aware it's been TWO weeks since hamm d*ed so might possibly need a brush up on the last chapter before this one. enjoy!!!

The air becomes thick with the smell of gasoline. Sickly, sickly, sickly. Eugene doesn’t know how he hasn’t vomited yet, but the cloying smell of the accelerant is almost enough to tip him over the edge. He doesn’t move to aid in the soaking of the simple, thatched huts; instead sitting by as Shelton scrubs the blood from face in a small stream running on the outskirts of the village. It’s swollen from the rain a week ago, and clean; probably run off from the mountains. Eugene thinks that it’s somehow fitting that a little part of Hamm will still be drifting around Vietnam, as he watches the dried blood come away from Shelton’s face. His scrubbing has opened up his split lip, and blood blooms fresh from it, streaking across his mouth as he wipes at his face with the back of his hand. If he notices, he doesn’t seem to care. 

“You know you didn’t have to put your ass out there to defend him.” Shelton mutters, pulling out a cigarette and then tucking it away as he obviously thinks better of it. The smell of gasoline is heavier now; Eugene watches Davis shake the last few drops of it from the gallon can in his hands, a surge of hatred bubbling up inside his chest. “Ain’t like he’s here to appreciate it.” His tone is deadened, absent. Eugene wants to shake him, to wake him up and have him show any kind of emotion towards what had happened. He wants anger, sadness, anything but this awful detachment.

“Don’t matter if he knows or not.” Eugene bites out. “I don’t do things for people to notice. It weren’t right, the bastard had to be told.”

Shelton snorts, a humourless smile playing around his mouth. Any words he may have been about to speak are eaten up by the deafening sound of a low flying helicopter; the harsh _whump_ of its blades as it hovers above the canopy. A CASEVAC, here to haul away their wounded and their dead. At the sight of it, Eugene’s heart sinks into his stomach. It kicks up all the dirt and grit the grenades and bullets had displaced, making them both cough and cover their eyes as it rolls a fresh wave of gasoline stink their way. 

“You wanna say goodbye to him?” Eugene asks, watching medics hop out of the bird and begin carefully loading in the stretchered, bagged up bodies. Hamm, and two other men. Going home to the States, at last. Shelton just pins him with a long suffering look. 

“Can’t even tell which is him.” He says, carelessly, but Eugene sees how his gaze lingers on the body bags, laid out like they’re already in their graves. Shelton plays nonchalant the best, out of all the masks he wears. Eugene knows that he would barely need to scratch the surface to find the real emotion stewing under it. 

“Does it matter?” He asks, and Shelton doesn’t reply, just heaves himself to his feet with a grunt and leaves Eugene sat there by the stream. He can smell burning, already. A Zippo job; leaving nothing but ashes and singed ground in their wake. Within minutes, the air is thick with acrid, dark smoke; Eugene wets the neckerchief he was issued and never uses, and pulls it up over his mouth and nose before hauling himself to his feet as well. 

The burning leaves a bad taste in his mouth, but Hamm’s death is worse. Ashes and grit on his tongue. He kicks at a bundle of burning thatch, scattering embers and ash in his wake as he wanders through the village, the heat of the crackling flames making new sweat spring from his brow. He doesn’t know what to do with his helpless anger, his impotent grief. He watches a handful of men kicking at the side of a burning hut, kicking and kicking until the whole thing caves in on itself with a whoosh of smoke and flame. They laugh, and the noise settles unpleasantly into Eugene’s stomach. The smoke is climbing blacker and blacker into the blue sky above them; and Eugene watches it, breathing shallow through his wet kerchief as he tries to find any solace in the revenge. He knows the body of the VC who had killed Hamm is going up in the same flames that are beating hot against his skin, and the surge of anger that the thought raises in him is shocking. _They deserve worse_ , he thinks, unbidden. It doesn’t sound like his thoughts, and it scares him as much as it emboldens him. Maybe he’d survive this war after all. Maybe he should hold onto this anger and this grief and let it petrify him into something bulletproof and unafraid. 

He thinks of Shelton, his red rimmed eyes and his sleepless nights. The talisman of his Zippo and the scar under his eye. He thinks of his own nightmares, and has to bite the inside of his cheek until the faraway aching of the tears trapped in his throat ebb away. 

He finds Shelton staring into flames. His lighter is held loosely at his side, the whole set of his body defeated, exhausted. The flickering light of the fire casts his face into odd valleys and peaks, shadow and light. Eugene doesn’t know what to say to him, to this strange, silent version of him. He’d put this shirt back on, and the patches of Hamm’s blood are black from soaking into the olive drab fabric. 

“Are you okay?” He offers, and the flames play red in Shelton’s teeth when he sneers. 

“Yeah.” He says, dropping his gaze from the hypnotising flames to the lighter in his hand. Eugene watches him run his thumbnail over the words engraved on it, and he snaps it open, closed, a quick, nervous movement. “Just too many fuckin’ kids dying out here.” He adds, and the tone of his voice is somber, suddenly honest. He throws a glance over his shoulder, eyes cast downward, meaning Eugene can pinpoint the moment the floodgates of his anger release. His expression twists, and he spits, vitriolic, “All for a buncha old white dudes who’d never last a goddamn minute out here.” 

Eugene can’t find the words to respond. He can’t stand empty words, just as he can’t stand silence in times like this. “I’m sorry.” He settles on, feeling doubly helpless when Shelton laughs, a short, humourless sound, and drags his hand across his eyes. By the light of the burning hut, Eugene can see tear tracks glistening on his cheeks. His vulnerability is so frightening that it’s nauseating. 

“My date’s comin’ up.” He says, simply, and the words drop like a stone onto Eugene’s chest. He can’t find the words to respond; everything he’d been planning to say since he’d near-confirmed the fact had died on his lips. “Did you know?” Shelton asks, eventually. Silently, Eugene shrugs, and then nods. Shelton glances away from him, a bitter smile curling his lips. “Yeah.” 

“How long?” Eugene asks, quietly. The hut in front of them buckles, the flames eating away at it until it collapses in on itself, covering them both in a sigh of ash and smoke. Eugene swipes at his dirty, hurt face, the smoke stinging in his eyes. Better to blame it on that than the angry-sad tears threatening hard at the back of his throat. “How long’ve you been here?” He presses. 

Shelton flicks his lighter open again, pressing the pad of his thumb along the edge of the lid. “Two weeks before Tet.”

Eugene’s stomach drops, and he rounds on him, fear and anger muddling in him. “Bullshit.” He mutters, desperately, and Shelton doesn’t move, doesn’t look at him. “Tell me you’re bullshitting me.”

He snaps the lighter closed, and finally turns his gaze on Eugene. His eyes are red, from the smoke, from tears? Eugene can barely see through his own to tell, and he swipes at them angrily before a smattering of laughter from a few feet away reminds him of exactly where he is. “I couldn’t find a good time to tell you.” Shelton says, and the stark apologetic tone to his words makes it so much worse. The wood of the hut shifts in the flames, sending a shower of sparks heavenward. 

“We can’t talk about this now.” Eugene mutters, and scrubs at his face again, feeling all the grit and the dirt and the tiny little wounds from the blast of that grenade under his hands. “Later.”

Shelton puts up no protest: just ducks his head and pockets his Zippo before following Eugene to go join the rest of their platoon. The night catches up with them quicker than anticipated; that mid November sun dropping earlier and earlier each night. Eugene watches Shelton throw back a pill, swallowing it dry with a grimace. His eyes find Eugene’s, eerie wide through the gloom, and then he tilts his head back to take another.

“Really?” Eugene asks, and Shelton’s eyes flit back to him. 

“Couldn’t forgive myself if I was asleep and those bastards made contact.” He mutters, something veiled in his tone. 

They tramp along in silence beside each other for another few hundred feet, until Eugene finds the right words and mutters, “It weren’t your fault.”

Shelton doesn’t reply, doesn’t even look his way. He’s shuddering with adrenaline by the time they break to make camp for the night, his movements jerky and uncoordinated as he takes a seat on the ground, leaned up against his pack in a way that tells Eugene that he isn’t sleeping that night.

“Doin’ okay?” Burgie asks him, and Shelton just flaps his hand at him, eyes far away and gazing unseeing into the blackness of the night-lit jungle. Burgie raises his eyebrows at Eugene, who shrugs, and shakes his head. He can tell the emotions of the day are beginning to rise to a head under the influence of the 400mg or so of Dexedrine Shelton had downed without blinking, and settles himself in for a night keeping watch by Shelton’s prickly, overstimulated side. He can’t get past how easily he had admitted what he had to Eugene, so much so that every time Eugene attempts to do what he does best and _muse_ on it, his brain shies away from it. He can feel it like a physical entity, settled between them as they sit with the near-silence of the jungle and their thoughts. Eugene digs his fingers into his eyes, hard enough to see stars.

The moon is hanging red-orange and low in the sky, rising slow and catching the last dregs of sunset. Eugene loves when he catches it like that; the thin, wispy clouds veiling its face and the warm, sunset glow to it. He likes to think that it’s catching the light of the sunrise from the other side of the world. Another life, a saner one. He imagines his family, the big cold, mausoleum of their house, and his and his brother’s empty rooms, the table laid for breakfast which his mother picks at and his father bolts before work. It’s not a particularly warm daydream, not a fanciful one like he loses himself in sometimes, where his mother loves his father, and his father can still make eye contact with him. But it’s real, and it’s home, and a dose of normalcy that he is stunned to find himself missing. He imagines Shelton right in the centre of it all, smoking and grinning and getting a kick out of how much he hates it. 

His gaze settles on Shelton, and wonders when it was that he began conflating him with these domestic daydreams. His heart sinks as the picture of Shelton in his home brings with it its own dose of dreaded reality. _Two weeks before Tet_. The words sink down leaden into his bones. 

“I wish you’d told me sooner.” He murmurs, hands curled against his cheek as he watches Shelton. He’s still jittering, Hamm’s blood a stain on his clothes, cigarette hanging from his mouth as he carefully and deliberately takes apart a claymore for the C4 to heat his dinner. 

“Couldn’t.” Shelton mutters around his smoke. His eyes slide from the mine in his hands to Eugene’s face. “I knew it was gonna hurt you.”

“I coulda had some time to get used to the idea of you not bein’ here.” Eugene says, trying his best to keep his voice even. Before, the concept that Shelton would be back in the world by early January hadn’t sunk in. Hamm’s death was still so fresh that he could still smell his blood in his nose. He’d been too distracted, too spaced out and dissociated from it all to really digest the situation. But now, with the wound of Hamm’s absence still stinging under the cool night air but distant, slightly slightly, the cogs in Eugene’s head have begun to turn. It’s easier to concentrate on this, and not the space where Hamm should be. He thinks it's sadness he can feel, heavy like a nightmare on his chest. Sadness, or perhaps plain old resignation. In some way, there’s almost an element of relief to the cocktail of emotions inside him. Relief, because his guessing and worrying is finally over. If he can take any good from this, it’s that. 

“It wouldn’t have mattered.” Shelton says, shortly, and his brusqueness is painful. “And you guessed, anyway.”

“Because Burgie let it slip!” He hisses, fighting to keep his voice low. “And I didn’t think it’d be so soon!”

Shelton shrugs one shoulder, but Eugene can see his careless mask cracking. He’s biting at his lips, eyes on his lap even though his hands have stilled in their task. When he speaks, his voice is small, and quiet. “D’you hate me, now?”

“ _No._ ” Eugene murmurs, emphatically. He’s frustrated, but the set of Shelton’s shoulders is tired, and hurt, and he can’t bring himself to be spiteful enough to make this day any harder on him. “I just don’t know why you didn’t _tell me_. And I don’t believe that it’s ‘cause you couldn’t find a good time; there ain’t any good times for anythin’, and we’ve managed just fine with a lotta shit.”

“‘S different.” Shelton says, and then, “I didn’t even wanna think about it myself, Gene. Wanted to keep the fuckin’ daydream fantasy between us goin’ on for as long as I could; didn’t wanna spoil it by tellin’ you time was almost up.”

“Spoil what?” Eugene asks, and Shelton just makes a frustrated noise; gestures to himself, to Eugene.

“ _Us_. This.” He knots his fingers in his hair, claymore lying forgotten in his lap. “‘S too much good with you and I knew it had to end, but I wanted to put it off as long as possible. And the other stuff, the gettin’ back to regular life; I didn’t wanna think about any of it.” When Eugene doesn’t say anything immediately, Shelton adds, “‘S easier to be here and play war and have the danger of me gettin’ my damn head blown off than think for a goddamn second about how I’m gonna deal with bein’ back Stateside.” He laughs, a short, humourless noise. “Ain’t that just fucked up?”

“You know,” Eugene murmurs, reaching his hand out until his pinky grazes the back of Shelton’s hand. “I exist outside this place too. We both can.”

“I ain’t so sure.” Shelton says, and his voice is bitterly sad. Eugene can see his hands are shaking when he pulls away from Eugene’s touch and raises them to light a fresh cigarette. It makes his heart ache for the fears that Shelton has been carrying around all this time. “You don't get to go home from this. I sure ain't, not after everythin’ I’ve done here. It's in my head now, part of me's gonna stay in Vietnam until the world fuckin’ dies, and part of Vietnam is gonna be in me 'til I die. Goin' home don't mean nothin' when it comes back with you.”

“That ain’t true.” Eugene murmurs, just to fill the yawning silence that follows Shelton’s outburst. He watches him smoke, fiddling anxiously with the ring on his finger until a burst of nervous, pitying energy surging within him has him blurting, “‘S scary doin’ anything new. You’re scared of goin’ home and fuckin’ it all up, but you won’t.” He waits, giving Shelton room to reply, to do anything but sit there silent and smoking, brooding. “Just ‘cos somethin’ comes home with you don’t mean you gotta welcome it in.”

“I ain’t ready to even try.” Shelton says, voice dull and lacking the heat which Eugene thought his outburst might inspire in him. “Ain’t ready to leave the fear behind yet.” He leans back, the cold light of the moon picking out that absent, mask-like blankness of a face unwatched. “And it ain’t done with me, neither.”

It’s painful to watch him struggle with it. Eugene isn’t so selfish that he wishes Shelton would take this fear of the unknown (or the known; Eugene didn’t know what was worse) and re-enlist another year just to delay the inevitable. No man’s chances were that good, not even Shelton, who seems so bulletproof and untouchable. It’s the people around him, until the day it won’t be, and it’ll be his blood blackening someone else’s uniform. It could still happen, because even a short timer wasn’t impervious to the freak accidents of war. Eugene thought of Hamm, and his pale eyes, two months in country and already the reaper had caught him up. They were all living on the same borrowed time.

“There ain’t nowhere for me to be.” Shelton adds, then, his voice low and dripping with self pity. “Except for right fuckin’ here.”

Eugene doesn’t know what else he can say, because when Shelton gets into these self pitying moods there is little to draw him back to the surface. It’s the same creature that made him try and warn Eugene away on that sunset-lit evening on the banks of the Saigon river. The same creature which had spoken through him and whispered, _do you hate me?_ into the midnight darkness of the space between their beds. “You’re tired.” Eugene says, eventually, and when Shelton opens his mouth to retort he barrels over him. “Tired in the whole cosmic sense, Shelton. Nothin’ can make sense or feel good about leavin’ what you know, when what you know’s been _this_ ,” He gestures around themselves, at the jungle, the platoon, at the whole sick, sad mess of war. “And you’re so goddamn exhausted you ain’t got a chance in hell of gettin’ your head screwed on right.”

_And I’ll miss you and I want you here_ , Eugene thinks, watching as Shelton blinks his big, tired eyes at him. _And I don’t know how I’m gonna do this without you._ His conception of war was a war fought with Shelton by his side; under his ever watchful eye. Eugene didn’t feel ready to find out what kind of creature war was, alone. L’Eau was short, too. He felt sick, thinking of how different the second half of his war will be. 

“Say what you mean.” Shelton mutters, an edge to his voice that wasn’t there before. It makes Eugene bristle, the events of his day and his exhaustion and the shock of Shelton’s admission piling onto him all at once.

“I’m sayin’ plenty of dead men would kill to be in your boots, right now.” He all but snaps, and Shelton sucks his teeth, and glances away. His jaw tightens. “I’m sayin’ you’ll realise just how lucky you are once you get home and everythin’ starts to sink in. If it was a toss up between bein’ alive with Vietnam in my head, or bein’ dead without it, I know which I’d pick. And what a lotta other men would too.”

“Gotta month and a half left, yet.” Shelton mutters, something aggravating in his tone. He cocks his head, eyes like flint through the darkness. “Don’t speak too soon, Gene.”

“I ain’t the one you’re mad at.” Eugene says, and watches Shelton’s face change. “Don’t take it out on me.” He can’t work out when their talking had shifted from apologies to annoyance, but he resents it. Words are clamouring in his throat to be expressed, but Eugene finds he’d rather choke on them than to be any more vulnerable to this cold, self-despairing version of Shelton. 

They don’t speak anymore; the topic so turned over and picked through in Eugene’s own head that he feels whatever Shelton has to add inconsequential, especially with the mood he’s in. Every time Eugene closes his eyes a parade of the dead march across his subconscious, headed by a pale faced, bloody mouthed Hamm. After a time he gives up on sleep entirely, lying on his back watching the stars, listening to Shelton chain smoke nearby.

“Got any more of those pills?” He whispers, and Shelton makes a low, humourless noise. _Ha._

“Not for you.”

“Why’d you take ‘em like that?” Eugene asks, and he doesn’t have to elaborate, and Shelton doesn’t play dumb by pretending he doesn’t know what Eugene means.

“‘S easier.” He mutters, and all Eugene can see through the moonlit gloom is the whites of his eyes. He doesn’t expand on it, and Eugene finds he doesn’t have the guts to ask him to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! and being patient with the missed update last week: i had a friend come to visit and was too busy to write :^)


	16. Chapter 16

In the morning, when they pack up and head out, Eugene finds Hamm’s absence to be a void. A painful, constant reminder. Eugene hadn’t realised how accustomed he’d gotten to his naive questions, his dumb Okie accent and those odd moments of true, amusing wit. He can tell that the absence is felt amongst the lot of them, and even more so by their own little circle. Him, Burgie, Shelton, and L’Eau.

“Wish I’d been fuckin’ nicer to him.” L’Eau says, right out of the blue as they tramp along a long, open road. A train of APCs broken only by a couple of light tanks is making its noisy way past them, kicking up the dry dirt from the track to hang heavy in the still air. They’ve been trekking along beside them for a while, now, and Eugene feels full to the brim with dusty dirt in his eyes, his nostrils, his mouth. Burgie spits on the ground to clear his mouth of the same dirt, face grim as he rests a hand on L’Eau’s skinny shoulder.

“You were plenty nice.” Burgie says, his low voice reassuring in a way that Eugene desperately wants to be put at ease by. The same thought has been knocking around his head for the past day too, guilt coiling sickly through him. 

All the marching means too much brain space is left for thinking, as Eugene’s thoughts take the turn down a similar path to L’Eau’s. He thinks that everyone's thoughts do; their little huddle dropping silent as the trucks roll by, making enough noise to dampen the impact of their sudden quiet, but not enough to distract from the guilty thoughts rolling around their heads. Or perhaps Eugene is projecting; forcing his own guilt onto everyone else as he curses himself for being so goddamn mean all the time to the kid. It isn’t like him to mock, or tease, but there was something about the state they existed in at war that made it acceptable to do so. To pick a weak link and banter with him until it just toed the line of meanness. Call it learned behaviour, but Eugene didn’t like the things he was learning that he had a propensity towards. 

He catches Shelton’s expression out of the corner of his eye; tight and set, beetle-browed. It’s not hard to remember who gave Hamm the hardest time out of them all. Eugene turns his gaze back ahead, giving Shelton the room to work through whatever it is he’s working through in silence as they continue on together down the road.

Later, just past nightfall, Shelton crowds close to Eugene with a hand on his wrist. It’s a cloudy night, that bright moon covered over by cloud, which is the only thing helping them get away with the touch. Eugene can just make out Shelton’s face; something doe eyed and vulnerable. “There’s a lotta things I wanna change.” He whispers, fast like he’s afraid he’ll be interrupted. Eugene wishes he could touch his face, slow him down, but instead he just stays still, listening. “I wanna go back and tell you ‘bout my date sooner, wanna be less of an ass to Hamm, wish I’d quit on Kit when I first realised he didn’t feel for me like I felt for him. Anythin’.” His eyes flick away, but his fingers find Eugene’s dog tags, and curl there. “But I can’t.”

He falls silent, and the way his gaze drifts back to Eugene tells him he’s waiting for something. Eugene touches his thumb to the bony jut of Shelton’s wrist; just the barest brush. “None of us can.” He murmurs, and the hard set to Shelton’s mouth relaxes, a little. “It’s okay.”

“I can’t leave you in this goddamn war by yourself.” He breathes, breaking away from Eugene as their LT wanders by. His eyes follow him, twitchy nervous, before drifting back to Eugene’s face. 

“Yes you can.” Eugene says, hooking his index around Shelton’s pinky; the barest and most out of sight touch he can manage. “You’re gonna leave me here because you’re done and I ain’t, and you’re gonna go home to whatever backwater part of Louisiana you crawled outta,” He grins, and Shelton just snorts, glancing away as he sways a little on his feet. “And you’re gonna sleep in your bed, and talk to your brothers, and live your life.”

“Don’t sound like me.” Shelton mutters, and he sounds so displeased by the comparatively near-idyllic life which Eugene is presenting him with that he almost laughs.

“What, you wanna rot away in Vietnam forever?” He asks, and Shelton shrugs one shoulder, expression bordering on petulant. “C’mon, you know better than to want that.”

“Maybe I don’t.” He says, and he pulls out a cigarette, and the conversation is abandoned. Still, the selfish things Eugene wants to say are burning at the back of his throat. _Don’t leave me- I’m afraid- I need you-_

“Your fears are my fears.” He says, and doesn’t miss the way Shelton’s hand pauses in its journey to his mouth, at that. “I mean it.”

Shelton ducks his head, free hand coming to pinch at his mouth, pressing his fingertips into his lower lip as he watches Eugene from under his brow. “I know.” He mutters, finally, and swaps his fingers for his cigarette. “I know.”

\-------

On Eugene’s twenty-third birthday, Shelton emerges from a deep, slow moving river with leeches peppered all over his shins. It’s Burgie who scolds him, “That what you get, not tuckin’ your goddamn pants into your boots,” while Eugene and L’Eau laugh themselves silly at his misfortune. It’s very reminiscent of the time Eugene had discovered the tick on him, and had dispatched it quickly and with a great deal of amusement with the business end of his cigarette.

“You’re a magnet for pests.” He says, and Shelton laughs for the first time since Hamm had died, tipping him a sly wink from his seat on the ground.

“Explains the lotta you.”

It’s Eugene who pulls the leeches off of him; the others too squeamish to touch their slick, wiggling bodies. Eugene’s a dab hand at it; the long summers of his boyhood spent fishing in the rivers of Alabama have desensitised him to leeches entirely. It’s an odd thing to see; thin, watery blood running and mixing into Shelton’s wet leg hair, the fresh blood bright against his paler shins. Eugene flicks them away into the undergrowth, half a dozen or so, until Shelton is free to try and stem the bleeding with a piece of gauze unearthed from his months old medical kit.

“They got somethin’ in ‘em that just makes you bleed and bleed.” He mutters, and Eugene finds himself transfixed by the rueful smile that’s transforming his tired, dirty face. They watch as the tiny little marks all over his legs bloom with blood once again, unstoppable as it begins to trickle over his skinny calves.

A couple Hueys pick up their little platoon a couple miles on, setting down for just a moment in the soft, wet soil of the rice paddy that serves as their rendezvous point. They splash through the water to climb aboard, not minding the dirt and mud the chopper blows into their faces as it tilts down, a rescuing angel. Shelton rolls the legs of his pants up once they’re inside and in the air, piled up all on top of each other as the helicopter sweeps through the air. The jungle drops away underneath them, and Eugene finds himself struck again by the sheer, ancient beauty of it all. A river meanders snakelike through the densely packed green of the trees, shining shiver as the Huey tilts a certain way, and the sun catches it just right. 

“These goddamn _leeches_.” Shelton cries, voice all cut up and half lost to the deafening noise of the chopper. Eugene glances down, mouth curling in disgust as he spots a black, writhing thing just behind the tongue of Shelton’s boot. His wounds are bleeding again, and Eugene watches as he plucks it off himself, bracing himself on the door gunner’s mount as he flings it out of the side of the Huey. Later, back at base, Shelton will leave his blood soaked socks in Eugene’s rack, and smirk so amusedly, so familiarly, that Eugene can’t stay mad at him for even a second.

They don’t stay put at base long; the repercussions of the attack earlier in the year during the Tet holiday are rearing their ugly heads again. In waves, the aftershocks of those weeks of combat continue to ebb and flow. Eugene had been one of the many deployed in answer to the dismal failure of the third round of fighting in Saigon, post-Tet, so he knew little else than this heightened, desperate violence. But Shelton, their LT, and a handful of other short-timers and lifers knew better.

“We’re losin’.” Shelton mutters, one day, the whole lot of them crouched with their ears pricked for movement in the bush. His eyes are fixed right ahead, unwavering as he watches their man on point raise his fist. _Hold_.

“Why’d you say that?” Eugene whispers back, his hands sweaty in their grip on his rifle. He could hear the chatter of a foreign radio, could smell the sweet scent of pot. The waiting to ambush is what always did him in; raised his heart rate until he was trembling with anticipation. Sometimes, he feels a very different man to the one who had been drafted. 

Shelton gives him a slow, sidelong look from under the lip of his helmet. The cover is torn, that old Sharpie’d drawing of LBJ worn and faded beyond recognition. Eugene figures that Shelton too, is a far different man. “Nixon’s promisin’ to get us outta here.”

“And has been for months.” Eugene says, as Shelton’s eyes drift back to the clenched fist of the man on point. “What, you think he’s gonna do it?”

Shelton shrugs one shoulder. “I’m gettin’ my ass outta dodge before the bastard’s inaugurated.” He mutters, and looks about ready to say more before his eyes sharpen up, and Eugene glances away from his face just in time to see their guy on point open his hand, fingertips straight up towards the jungle canopy. There’s a beat of silence, that moment of coiled, tight anticipation, and then his arm tips forward. _Move up._

They spring forward into action like a well oiled machine. In the back of Eugene’s mind, he thinks that it isn’t basic that makes them all into men, after all. Maybe that lies in the killing, in the being killed. Proximity with the reaper before anything else. He can mark his ascension in the physical; the hardening of his body, the way his stomach swoops less in fear and more in nervous anticipation, the way his finger no longer hesitates on the trigger. He’s newly twenty-three, with five months under his belt and seven more to go, and his war is stretching out long and solitary in front of him. Eugene supposes it’s irrevocable, the adaption to whatever is needed to ensure survival. Isn’t that all the kingsnake did? The camel? 

Early December puts them right in the middle of some of the worst combat Eugene has seen in country so far. They begin to lose enough men that his anxiety kicks up so hard in his chest that he finds he can barely sleep, barely eat. Hamm’s death was some kind of omen, some kind of harbinger for the difficult, dangerous months that follow. Eugene finds himself nauseous almost constantly, sunsick and exhausted and so keyed up with nerves that his jaw hurts from grinding his teeth. But he’s alive. And so is Shelton, and Burgie, and L’Eau, who’s so short now that he won’t stop talking about it. Home this, Mom that. If he weren’t nineteen and excited to somehow still be standing on his two, pigeon-toed feet, Eugene’s sure Shelton would’ve tried to knock some quiet into him weeks ago. He wants an early-out, like Leyden got, wants to be home for Christmas so he can eat his mommy’s turkey and meet a new niece. 

“I’m prayin’ to _god_ you get an early-out too, Jay.” Shelton mutters, sarcasm dripping from his words. He’s in a bad mood. Lips curled back from his gums like a dog. L’Eau pops his head up, curious. “‘Cos all I want for Christmas is a photo of your mama’s-”

“ _Shelton_.” Burgie cuts in, his voice toeing the line between scandalised and exasperated. “Jesus, c’mon.”

“Don’t talk about my mother like that.” L’Eau follows up with, face pink, and Shelton scoffs at them both. 

“Didn’t realise this were a goddamn church retreat.” He mumbles, leaning back against Eugene’s side as his hand dives into a pouch on his belt for his cigarettes. Burgie eyes them up, flicking from the easy way Eugene takes Shelton’s weight, to how Eugene had automatically thrown his arm across Shelton’s chest, and with a sinking sense of dread, Eugene watches something like understanding settle into his gaze. Immediately, Eugene withdraws his arm from around Shelton’s chest, shuffling back a little until space opens up between them again. Shelton, to his credit, doesn’t notice a thing; too wrapped up in yakking about something unimportant with L’Eau. Burgie’s gaze slides away, like it was never there, but Eugene can’t escape the feeling of having been caught. Oil slick anxiety on his skin.

Eugene keeps a low profile the next few days. They’re marooned in camp again, which gives him plenty of time to rattle around the perimeter and try and remind himself that this is meant to be a time to _unwind_. It never comes easy, and hasn’t for a long time, but it feels even more so out of reach now. He’s had one too many man-to-man ‘chats’ after getting caught letting his guard down a little too far to last him a lifetime, and he can’t even entertain leaving himself open for another. His father, his brother, his best friend since childhood, Sid. Men in college, after seeing him with _other_ men in college. He couldn’t stomach another, not when everything else is pressing in so close on him he finds he can barely draw breath. Hamm’s death had been the catalyst for too much, and Eugene finds he’s still reeling enough from that to deal with little else. It doesn’t seem fair that he can’t take the time he needs to grieve the kid, and he has a sneaking suspicion the whole thing will come crashing down on him sooner or later.

At night, when he lies down to sleep, he dreams of a confusing mix of home and war. His grandmother’s funeral, those disjointed Polaroid memories, except it’s Hamm in the coffin that his aunt dirties her hose to kneel down beside. Hamm, dressed in that same sweat-stiff flak vest of his, his helmet with his achingly meager tally marks Sharpie’d on down low over his white, white face. Lips, red with blood that is still bubbling forth like he has the breath to draw in his ruined chest. 

Eugene takes up nightly walks, like Burgie. Alone, smoking, walking fast like what he’s running from isn’t all around him, inside him in every breath he draws and drop of water he drinks. The walls are closing in quick, and he’s heard of second campaign slump from his father, but the old WWII terms don’t apply to this new war and so the exhaustion that drags him down remains nameless, toothless. There’s no way to measure his time spent, no campaigns, no real battles. They fight dirty and afraid, sliding in the mud as their rifles jam and their buddies die and the VC remain as elusive and invisible as ever. Clawing tooth and nail for any kind of victory, and when one does come it rings so hollow in the gaps in their line where friends once stood that it hardly feels like a victory at all.

It’s around this time that Eugene stops journalling. He finds he has little to say, little he wants to remember. Base camp is that same space caught between dreaded monotony and blissful rest; Eugene learns to try and take some advantage of his biggest task being that he has to fill sandbags before he finds himself clinging to the webbing inside of a Huey, shuttling them off to another search and destroy mission which become more and more dangerous as both sides turn more desperate. Combat is the same, too, more or less. He’s aware he’s in a slump, but there’s little he can do to pull himself out of it. He sits with his shoulder to Shelton’s and avoids the creeping anxiety any casual glance towards them brings, and he does his duties and he kills his share of men, and every day he makes another tally mark in the worn, torn cover of his helmet. 

“You’re gonna be fine without me.” Shelton whispers to him, one night when he’s curled around Eugene’s body in his rack, the cover of night keeping them from watchful eyes.

“I know.” Eugene murmurs, and reaches a hand back to touch Shelton’s face, the barest brush of his fingers to his stubbled cheek. “That ain’t the point.”

There’s a long, ringing beat of silence, following his words. Shelton shifts, his bare chest hot against Eugene’s back, his hand sliding from Eugene’s waist and over his stomach. “You’re a lot different than when we first met.” His tone verges on somber.

“Sayin’ that like it’s a bad thing.” Eugene says, and Shelton hums.

“It ain’t a good thing or a bad thing,” He replies. “Just a thing. Comes for all of us.”

Eugene doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he doesn’t. Doesn’t want to give voice to the fear that he’s changing, the fear that he’s already changed and is beyond any hope of going back. _It’s in my head now_ , he thinks, Shelton’s bitter voice rattling around his skull. He stays silent for so long that Shelton must believe he’s fallen asleep; his arms tighten around Eugene as he drops a kiss to the nape of his neck, and quietly, so low that it’s almost imperceptible, he breathes, “Just don’t go changin’ any more.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!! :~~)
> 
> and if you wanna look for me on other sites:
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	17. Chapter 17

The day before Christmas their company returns to base for a three day stand down; and it’s to a drastically different camp from the one they’d departed for a search and destroy a week ago. Someone had put up a fully decorated plastic Christmas tree in a spare mortar pit near the outskirts of camp, and the sight of it amongst the sandbagged walls of the pit and the dry, barren ground is absurd. 

“It ain’t easy bein’ in the rear, huh?” Shelton mutters, as they tramp through the middle of the camp, weighed down in their dirty clothes and by their heavy packs. Someone had hung a sign off of the barrel of a M102 howitzer, declaring _out for x-mas truce_. The LT rips it down as they pass, and Burgie rolls his eyes at Shelton and Eugene as they all scatter off in different directions.

“See you after a jolly old AAR.” He quips, before following along after Davis, hand already diving for his pack of smokes in his clutch belt.

“Right.” Shelton says, standing still in the middle of the path as the two of them watch Burgie duck inside of the CO’s tent. “Shit, shower, shave.” And then he wrinkles his nose, eyes flicking to Eugene. “Y’know, that ain’t half as funny if Hamm ain’t around to be grossed out by it.”

Eugene inclines his head. “Lots ain’t funny now he’s gone.” He shifts his pack, the straps cutting into his aching shoulders. Not even the towel he has shoved under them as padding is saving him by this point. 

“Man, he would’ve loved this Christmas shit.” Shelton says, voice turning dangerously nostalgic. Eugene nudges him.

“C’mon,” He murmurs, leaning his shoulder up against Shelton’s. “Nothin’ you can do about it. Least we can do is enjoy the time off for him.”

There were several other small, plastic Christmas trees scattered throughout the base. Laden with tinsel, baubles and makeshift ornaments of tin cans and the like, stuck in piles of sandbags, or displayed outside of lean-tos. Eugene beats a hasty retreat to the showers, leaving Shelton to mess around with his pack and his bunk in their lean-to while he scrubs himself pink under the frosty water. Washing the jungle off of himself, leaving him brand spanking new and smelling fresh to celebrate the holiday. 

“Your mama send you anythin’?” Shelton asks him when he returns, wasting no time in ruffling his dirty hands through Eugene’s clean hair. “You smell good.”

“‘S called a shower.” He says, wryly. “You should try it.” It’s only after a shower that his senses wake back up, and Shelton’s now a cacophony of smells to him. Somewhere caught between heavy insect spray, sweat, and that rotten rice paddy stink. He’s filthy with it, mud slick on his skin and grime at his throat.

“Only if you’re there to soap me up, Marine.” Shelton’s smile is wide, that toothy, pleased grin. Eugene lets himself get swept up in it, lets himself drift away from the emotions of the last couple of weeks. Shelton earns a shove for his comment, and heads off to the showers laughing while Eugene breaks away to go wander to the PX. His mother had sent him a tin of cookies, the good kind, and a long winded letter detailing all the family drama he’s missed so far. He reads it on his stroll back to his tent, cigarette in his mouth and his prize tucked under his arm away from prying eyes. 

Shelton snatches it as soon as he comes within reach of him, pale eyes alight under his wet curls. “Oh I knew it.” He breathes, and then glances away from the stolen gift to ask, “Anythin’ else?”

Eugene laughs, and brandishes the letter at him. “Sure, if you wanna read ‘bout my aunt’s gout.”

Something wickedly amused flits across Shelton’s face. “‘S there pictures?” He follows it up with a yelp of mock-pain as Eugene smacks him with the paper, that smile still plastered across his face. Eugene can’t help mirroring it, helpless to Shelton’s rare good mood. Plus, he likes him clean, likes him in a fresh tee and no longer stinking of the jungle. He tugs once on Shelton’s dog tags, a smile curling his mouth as Shelton sways forward, expression sweet and lovesick as his eyes drop to Eugene’s mouth.

“You gonna go check for mail?” He asks, and Shelton’s eyes flit away, his easy smile dropping just slightly.

“Nah.” He says, ducking his head as he draws his smokes from his pocket. He rubs his thumbnail against the side of the tattered cardboard, and when he glances up, his expression is rueful, eyes squinted against the high afternoon sun. “Ain’t got anybody to send me anythin’.”

“Really?” Eugene can barely hide his surprise. The PX was practically bursting at the seams with packages, and their base wasn’t a large one by far. Shelton snorts.

“You think I’d lie about that?” He asks, turning away as he sticks a cigarette between his lips. Embarrassment leaches into his words, whether he’s noticed or not. “Shit.”

“I dunno.” Eugene mutters, watching as Shelton sits down on his rack to begin prising the lid from the cookies. “Everyone’s got someone.”

Ash falls from his cigarette onto his clean t-shirt as Shelton grins at that. “Well, sure I got somebody.” He mutters around his smoke, and then makes a small, triumphant noise as he succeeds in pulling the lid away. “Mrs. Sledge made sure to send enough for me too.” 

Eugene lets him eat them, his sweet tooth overriding any sense of how small his stomach would be after a week on rations; leaving him nauseous a short while later. He’s laid up on his rack, half dozing while Eugene pens a letter back to his mother, when Burgie reappears. He’s carrying a large box, on top of which balances a manila folder.

“Afternoon, boys.” He mutters, disappearing inside of his own lean-to that he shares with Jay to unload himself. “I believe my mama has sent us our very own Christmas tree.”

From inside their tent, Shelton groans. “Am I missin’ somethin’? Did everyone’s mama get a memo mine didn’t?”

“She’d be hard pressed to receive it.” Eugene says, on reflex, and feels like he thoroughly deserves Shelton’s following slap to his ear as penance. “Ow! I’m sorry!”

“Better fuckin’ be.” Shelton mutters, voice sour, flopping back onto his rack with a grunt. Burgie glances between them, something openly amused and curious in his expression. Eugene waves his hand at him.

“Go on, open it up.”

“I’ll wait for Jay.” He says, settling down next to Eugene with a sigh as he takes a peek at the sheaf of papers he has braced against his knee. “Auntie Ruth’s got gout?”

“She’ll have you believe it’s the biggest tragedy of the year.” Eugene replies, a smile pulling at his mouth as he sets pen to paper again. “Honestly, I’m almost glad I can get a break from them all this year.”

“Sure,” Burgie says, amusement crinkling his eyes. “Who needs ‘em. The good old Corps’ve sent you on a free holiday.”

“Exactly.” Eugene says, his smile widening as Burgie laughs. Something comfortable and _happy_ is burning low and warm in Eugene’s chest, and it’s a feeling so rare and unexpected that he finds he can’t wipe the grin off his face. He feels bad that he let the paranoia that had overtaken him the last few weeks get in the way of the easy rapport he and Burgie has. He decides to chalk it up to the malaria pills, infamous for making even the most screwed on head a little delusional, and lets himself slip back into closeness with the man. Soon, he’d be all Eugene has, anyway.

“So what’s wrong with him?” L’Eau’s asks as he wanders up, startling Eugene out of his thoughts, and Burgie out of his reading of Eugene’s letter home over his shoulder. The kid is bare chested, showing off his impressive farmer’s tan, his mousy brown hair wet and sticking up in tufts as he rubs at it with his towel. At Burgie and Eugene’s twin looks of confusion, he gestures with his thumb in the direction of Eugene’s lean-to. “Shelton?”

“Oh,” Eugene says, “He got into the cookies my mom sent me.”

“Idiot.” Burgie mutters, with affection. 

They set up Burgie’s little tabletop plastic tree while Shelton naps, L’Eau practically glowing in excitement at the prospect of a little normalcy. His mother had sent him pages upon pages of writing, practically wishing them all Christmas by first name and last name, alongside a very enviable pair of wool socks, and a brown paper care package so battered and tossed around in transit that it doesn’t take much effort to work it open. 

“How’s your mom know us?” Eugene asks. The three of them are sat crosslegged around the lopsided little tree, taking it in turns to scoop cookie crumbs from the tin into their mouths. L’Eau’s mom was practised in the art of a care package; his brother had been in Korea before the two of them had enlisted in Vietnam, and the woman knew exactly how to crumble up the homemade cookies to really make them stretch and head off being broken to dust in transit. 

L’Eau shrugs, cheeks bulging with cookie crumb. “I write her ‘bout you guys.” He says, mouth full. He swallows, eyes cast down as he dives back into his package. “Don’t everybody?” He pulls a few packs of gum from the box in his lap, followed by Kool-Aid packets, and handfuls of those single serve diner ketchup and mustards. Perfect for making their C-rations semi-edible and their water lose that iodine tang without the extra weight of real condiments or flavourings. Eugene doesn’t necessarily have the faith in a god like he used to as a kid, but he thanks whatever energy is out there that L’Eau's the generous type.

Burgie must be thinking the same, because he reaches out to ruffle L’Eau’s damp hair, a smile breaking across his face. “You’re a good kid,” He mutters, “What’s your mama think of us?”

L’Eau shrugs one shoulder. “I think she’s glad I made friends.” His eyes flick up then, at movement from within Eugene and Shelton’s lean-to. “Hey, Shelton, my mom sent the Tabasco you asked for.”

“Thank _fuck_.” Shelton groans, hair tousled and eyes heavy with sleep as he emerges into the daylight. “Jesus, I love your mama.”

“She thinks you’re a bad influence.” L’Eau snarks, an amused smile quirking his lips as he looks up at Shelton, who stretches, yawning.

“She ain’t wrong.” He mutters, using Eugene’s shoulder for balance as he leans down to scoop a handful of crumbs. “She send coffee again?”

“Naw.” He says, dipping back into the box and returning with a toothbrush. “But she did send me this after I told her you were cleanin’ your rifle with the same toothbrush as-”

“Alright, alright,” Shelton mutters, snatching the toothbrush from L’Eau’s hand. Eugene turns to give him a disbelieving look, to which Shelton just widens his eyes in reply. “What? Jay’s tellin’ lies.”

“I’ve seen you do it.” Burgie offers, and Eugene makes a noise of disgust as Shelton bares his teeth at Burgie. 

“Jesus, Shelton.” He mutters, trying to communicate _I kiss that mouth!_ as well as he can through eye contact alone. Shelton catches his drift no problem, and Eugene earns a roll of his eyes in reply.

“Whatever,” He mutters, jamming another handful of cookie crumb into his mouth as he says, “I’ve got watch. Jay, gimme a piece’a that gum, willya?” L’Eau surrenders a few pieces to him, which Shelton takes with a grin, stuffing them away in his clutch belt for later. “Alright,” He mutters, and pats Eugene’s cheek as he straightens up. His hand is gritty with crumbs against Eugene’s skin. “Later.”

There’s a beat of silence, until Eugene asks, “So Jay, gettin’ that early out?” 

L’Eau jumps on the topic, twisting up gum wrappers between his fingers for makeshift tree decor as he rambles about his mom’s Christmas turkey that he’s gonna have to miss another year. “I was in basic last Christmas.” He says, eyes on the twists of silver foil as he wraps them around the plastic branches of the tree. “So it woulda been nice if I’d gotten out early.” His voice turns a little blue, mouth tugging down as he adds, “Letters are nice, but I miss my mom.”

Burgie claps him on the shoulder, something very gentle in his expression as he says, “Only a little more to go. An’ then you’ll have so many Christmases at home you’ll be sick of it.”

The sentiment makes Eugene ache for the home he finds he hasn’t really been missing. Or perhaps just the normalcy of a chaotic family Christmas. His mother would be driving herself silly right about now, fussing about with the good china as his father sits in his armchair and chews the fat with his uncles. Last Christmas Eve he and Sid had gotten so horrifically drunk on his father’s whiskey that he’d spent all of Christmas Day violently ill, something which his brother had been incredibly amused by and his mother less so. He supposes it’s funny, the certain quality that time grants memory. He can’t imagine that same silly, drunken boy in his shoes right now. Freshly twenty-two without a thought in his head about the war which was being brought closer and closer to his doorstep. Perhaps that’s the one good thing about nostalgia: he’s unchanged in his memories, forever. 

They get a good meal, that night. The precursor to the veritable feast that their good old Corps have promised to lay on the next day. Shelton sits across from Eugene, and wolfs it down so quickly that he finishes miles ahead of everybody else, which gives him plenty opportunity to sit back and chain smoke leisurely. He’s always eaten like that; like a hungry animal, afraid the food is going to be taken away if he waits too long. There’s something feral about it, something distinctly and completely pathological about it that Eugene finds it something he doesn’t like to take notice of. Shelton’s skinny, wiry frame, the hard jut of his jaw and the way he sucks down cigarettes like a second meal. Eugene wonders just how many nights he’s had to go to sleep hungry.

His knee knocks up against Eugene’s under the table, distracting him from his thoughts with just the arch of a brow. There’s something sly and secret in the gradual unfurling of his smile as he chats and jokes with everyone around them, all the while never taking his eyes from Eugene’s face. The scrutiny is heady. Shelton has become less careful, as of late.

“Love seein’ you eat.” He murmurs, later when they’re alone, his lips just barely grazing the skin of Eugene’s stomach. They’re tucked together on Shelton’s rack, enjoying the cover of a cloudy, pitch black night, of the warmth of full bellies for once. 

Eugene laughs, his fingers buried in Shelton’s clean crop of curls as he presses three very decisive kisses along Eugene’s sternum. “Why?”

Shelton sinks his teeth into the softness of Eugene’s stomach, just below his navel. “Because.” He says, hands skating up over Eugene’s hips to curve around his ribcage. “I just like it. Knowin’ you’re fed. Knowin’ you ain’t goin’ to bed hungry.”

Eugene thinks of the quick, mechanical movements of Shelton’s eating. The way he eats long past satiety. “Maybe you’re makin’ some sense.” He murmurs, drawing his hands through Shelton’s hair as the other man makes pleased, tired noises against his skin.

“D’you think it’s midnight?” He asks, voice blurry with the half doze he seems to be dropping into; his face pillowed against Eugene’s stomach. “You think it’s Christmas?”

“I should be at mass.” Eugene replies, mind drifting dreamily on candles reflecting in gold, on the thick, sweet smell of incense, his childish distraction and the hard pew under him. “Mom makes me go every year.”

“You’re _Catholic_?” Shelton asks, head popping up in hazy distraction. He’s a smudge of darker night, just curls and stubbled skin under Eugene’s hands, but he can feel the smile curving his lips when he drops his thumb to his mouth.

“Lapsed.” He mutters. “Does that shock you?”

He feels Shelton shake his head. “We got more in common than I thought.”

“Never took you for a religious man.” Eugene says, combing his hands distractedly through Shelton’s curls. The night is very quiet around them, almost eerily so.

“Because I ain’t.” Shelton replies, and with a grunt he drags himself back up to Eugene’s level until he can tuck his face in close to his neck. “Jus’ raised on it.”

His lips find Eugene’s neck, the fluttering pulse under his skin. With difficulty, Eugene breathes, “Did it stick with ya?”

“Sure.” He murmurs, hand curving around Eugene’s waist. “The guilt did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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> also, should i make a tag for this on tumblr? i have no idea how people get updates for this, whether most of u rely on ao3 or on tumblr...? lemme know, if you have an opinion on it!
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	18. Chapter 18

It should have been little surprise that Christmas morning in Vietnam had little of the excitement of Christmas morning at home. Eugene rolls out of bed to the burning itch of a crop of new insect bites, a rash of them across his ribs, like the little bastard had strolled himself right along the buffet line. 

“I offer you my spray every night.” Shelton says archly, pulling his boots on from his seat on the ground. _His_ skin is as unmarred as ever, save a few long scrapes up his side from when he’d slipped in the mud and fell a few days ago. 

“Whatever.” Eugene mutters, and closes his eyes as Shelton stands, and chucks him under the chin affectionately. “Merry Christmas.”

Something shifts melancholy in Shelton’s expression, and he just pats Eugene’s cheek in response before ducking out of their lean-to, hands already digging for his smokes, boots still unlaced and loose around his ankles. Eugene watches him go, lost once again by the sharp changes in Shelton’s moods. 

They heat C-rations for breakfast, shovelling down lukewarm, mushy spaghetti with nothing else on their minds but the dinner ahead of them. Burgie brews coffee for him and Eugene, his face puffy and pale in the early morning light.

“Bad night’s sleep?” Eugene asks, settling down next to him after pulling his own boots on, eyes straying to Shelton almost on reflex. He’s shaking his gifted Tabasco all over his meal, and glances up as Eugene’s gaze settles on him as if he could sense it. 

“Don’t even ask.” Burgie mumbles into his mug, those bright blue eyes bloodshot and glazed. “Jesus, I got eaten alive.”

“Me too.” Eugene lifts his arm to show the trail of red welts along his ribs, and grins as Burgie’s mouth lifts in a grudging smile. “C’mon, it‘s Christmas. They gotta eat too.”

“Heard there’s pie.” L’Eau says, scraping noisily at his mess tin to get the last of the sauce in his mouth. There’s a fleck of it on his chin, and Eugene has to bite back on the urge to rub at his face like his mother used to do to him. “Pecan, maybe.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Shelton snarks, “What, for the mosquitos?” 

L’Eau’s ears go red as Burgie and Eugene laugh, sputtering out some half-baked sentence that falls on deaf ears. He turns redder and redder, until Shelton reaches out and ruffles at his hair, such a rare, affectionate gesture that L’Eau quiets immediately.

“I’m kiddin’.” He says, shoving L’Eau away from him playfully. “Mind on your dinner already?”

Eugene watches the exchange in the same disbelieving silence as Burgie. He forgets too easily that L’Eau and Shelton had been through basic together, and he’d never really paid attention to Shelton playing big brother until now. It’s sweet; so sweet that it turns Eugene a little gooey right down deep in that paternal part of him that doesn’t often rear its head. He locks it down and presses it away so as not to spend the rest of the morning mooning over Shelton’s rare shows of human decency, and shovels his half-warmed food into his mouth as a distraction.

The day evolves into a slow, easy one. The temperature has been dropping steadily over the past few weeks; nowhere near cold, but cool enough that Eugene no longer finds himself sweating while standing still. It’s a nice change, and he’d never considered just how much of a relief the cooler weather could be. He feels less irritable, less itchy, less like he needs a shower night and day. He and Burgie play a game of cards while L’Eau reads the paper nearby, one of his mom’s tins of cookie crumbs making its way around them. It’s a subdued Christmas, nothing like what he can imagine is happening on some of the bigger bases, but he finds it suits him just fine. He’s always found the family Christmases his mother puts together to be chaotic, uncomfortable. Far too full of aunts asking for kisses and telling him how big he’s got. The only thing leaving him a little gloomy is the knowledge that he can’t spend it with Sid, his childhood best friend and lifelong partner in crime at his mother’s parties. Last Eugene had heard from him, he was stationed in Huê and not enjoying it one bit. But it’s a small sadness, nothing quite so deep as what a few men he’d spoken to that day seemed to be struggling with. He’d run into a man with his head in his hands on his way to a shower; Eugene hadn’t managed to get much out of him besides his missing his family, but he was so young and blond that he’d reminded him of Hamm, and that was enough to set a lump firmly in his throat for the rest of the afternoon.

“‘S lonesome shit, war.” He’d muttered, wondering when exactly he’d put enough days in here to become an expert on it. The kid hadn’t replied, had just turned his head away, his expression a wash of shame and deep upset. Sometimes acknowledging the emotion hurt worse than just feeling it. Eugene had moved on, gone to shower, trying not to let it sour his day. 

Shelton had been in a similar subdued mood throughout breakfast, before duty had called him away. It may be Christmas, but they’re still at war, and Eugene feels it keenly as he waits for Shelton to come back from his turn on patrol. The jungle seems to whisper with it, urging them to let their guards down. If it happened on Tet, what could stop it from happening on Christmas? The potential for attack was always what set Eugene on edge, worse than the attack itself; it's the threat of it, the uncertainty. That too, he attempts to edge past, wanting a least one cheerful day.

Dinnertime finds Shelton in higher spirits, snapping the gum that L’Eau had surrendered to him obnoxiously, like a teenage girl, as they line up for their food. 

“Quit it.” Eugene mutters, elbowing Shelton in the side. He’s rewarded with a toothy grin, the kind that tells him Shelton is wholeheartedly enjoying pissing him off that day. He accepts it, because it’s better than a moping Shelton. 

“Make me.” Shelton murmurs, under his breath, that grin widening as Eugene feels himself flushing red. 

Dinner is turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce. The works. Real hot food, the kind that has some taste to it, the kind that takes a little effort to chew. In the back of his mind, Eugene knows it doesn’t hold a candle to the Christmas dinner his mother makes, but he can’t shake the feeling that it’s the best meal he’s had in his _life_. Five months of eating tasteless, generally cold C-rations really makes a man thankful for something even a little bit edible. They’re served beer with it, warm stubby cans of it, but beer nonetheless, and as much of it as they can drink. Burgie is conspicuously absent; no doubt off yukking it up in the officers tent with the lot of them. His absence is a little sad, but the three of them crack jokes about how he must be bored stiff over there until it’s funny again.

Somewhere between their meal and dessert - pumpkin pie, L’Eau had predicted wrong - the beer snakes right to Eugene’s head, and he finds himself flushed and giddy, sagging against Shelton’s side. He can tell Shelton likes it, and can tell he’s a little drunk himself; it’s there in the lax line of his shoulders, of his grin, the apples of his cheeks red from the alcohol and the food.

“I didn’t take you for a lightweight, Genie.” He murmurs, leaning close so the others don’t hear. The mess tent is a wall of noise, all ten dozen or so men inside eating and laughing and talking, and so his words are lost to the din. Eugene lets the pet name light him up inside, pleased warmth from his toes to his tingling fingertips.

“I’ve lost my touch.” He replies, and it takes all of his flagging self control not to lean into Shelton, not to slide his hand over the tempting curve of Shelton’s thigh in those undersized pants. He’s slouched over his dinner, elbows on the table, the barest roll of fat below his navel from where his pants are cutting into his stomach, visible through his tight tee. Eugene wants to bite it, wants to rub himself off on it. 

Someone passes him a fresh beer, and he takes it, watching as the corner of Shelton’s mouth curls upwards in a smirk. His eyes are heavy lidded, sleepy and sated from his full stomach and the beer, and Eugene is helpless to the rising wave of affection cresting in him. 

“I wanna give you somethin’, later.” Shelton murmurs, pressing his cheek to his shoulder as he glances back at Eugene. “Just a little gift.” There’s something slyly demure, something coy, in his big, green eyes.

Eugene laughs, glancing away back to his food and back to the room at large as he becomes aware of just how caught up in their own little bubble they are. “Is that a euphemism?” He asks, halfway under his breath as he pokes at his pie. Shelton scoffs, and when Eugene risks a glance back he’s still _looking_. Staring like he’s never gonna have the chance to again. 

“Not exactly.” He murmurs, his attention drawn away by a clatter from across the tent. “Just somethin’ I want you to have.”

“Oh,” Eugene sets his fork down. Shelton glances back at him, and his gaze sticks. “We’re doin’ gifts?”

“I am.” Shelton says, a teasing little smile beginning to curve his mouth. “After dinner, before it gets dark.”

“Sure.” Eugene says, dumbly, and watches as Shelton drains the last of beer and stands, dog tags rattling with the movement. 

“Gonna smoke.” He mutters, and braces a hand on Eugene’s shoulder as he swings his leg over the bench seat. Eugene takes the weight, gazing up at him as he adds, “Take a walk. I’ll see ya.”

It’s not a question, and he doesn’t wait for an answer. Eugene is left with his pie and his swimming head, L’Eau’s elbow digging in hard to his ribs. He jolts, snapping out of the reverie that Shelton’s low voice and heavy gaze had left him in.

“Where’s he off?” L’Eau asks, and Eugene makes some excuse, some rushed string of words like _smoke, toilet, tired_ before he’s grabbing his beer and half-tripping out of the bench to follow. He can feel L’Eau’s eyes on his back, but his gaze is set firmly on the small, meandering figure of Shelton a few feet away. His head is ducked, and Eugene can visualise the spidery plunge of his fingers into his pockets for his smokes; the way he’ll smack his Zippo against his palm once, twice, before lowering his head until his cigarette catches the flame. 

Eugene fetches up against him, knocks shoulder to shoulder as he leans in conspiratorial to whisper, “Mind if I join you?”

Shelton just grunts around his cigarette, a vague approximation of a yes before he takes his smoke from his mouth to say, “I feel like tellin’ you no ain’t much use.”

“Damn right.” Eugene mutters, voice rich with satisfaction. He stuffs his hand into his pocket, takes a swig of his beer. “Gotta maximise on the time I still got with you.”

Shelton snorts. “Makes me sound like I’m dyin’.”

Eugene just bumps against his shoulder again, affectionate touch masquerading as clumsiness, and doesn’t miss the way Shelton grins at it. Ducking his head like it matters, like he could hide anything from Eugene. “What, you ain’t?” He asks, teasing. 

“Total opposite.” Shelton replies, something privately amused in the curve of his mouth. 

They take a loop around the perimeter; walking off their meal, their vague drunkenness. The sun is just beginning to dip below the tree line, casting long shadows across the razed dirt ground. Shelton is lit up in all the colours of the sunset, so golden and handsome that Eugene becomes less convinced that he’s real the longer he looks at him. Like if he reached out to settle his curls straight, his hand would pass right through him. It’s not a frightening thought, just melancholy. It’s the strangest Christmas Eugene has ever had. 

“I want my gift.” He says, and Shelton gives him a slow, sidelong glance. They’re strolling, that companionable silence as they drift along in each other’s company. Eugene bumps his elbow against Shelton’s. “Please.”

“You’re in a good mood today.” 

“Ain’t it Christmas?” He asks, stealing Shelton’s cigarette as he half raises it to his mouth. He grins, happy in the moment, for once. Happy for Shelton’s eyes on him and for his full stomach, for Shelton’s patient mood and his turnaround since the morning. “Ain’t that an excuse?”

“I s’pose it is.” Shelton says, tucking his hands in his pockets as he slides his gaze away to the tree line. Ever watchful. Eugene can practically see the moment he relents: it’s there in the drop of his shoulders, the roll of his eyes. “Alright, you can have it now.” Eugene grins, and throws an arm around Shelton’s shoulders to pull him roughly, relishing in his laugh as he stumbles. His boot skids in the loose ground, leaving him clinging to Eugene in an attempt to stay upright. “Jesus, calm down! It ain’t much.”

“More than anythin’ I was expecting.” Eugene murmurs, trying hard to bite back on his grin as he releases Shelton. He wants badly to nuzzle into his throat, to smell his skin, his clean sweat, but is hyper-aware of the men beginning to spill out from the mess hall, of those who were stuck with perimeter duty. He settles for the lingering sensation of Shelton’s hands clinging to his waist as he pulled him off balance; the firm grip, the heat. 

They pace back around to their lean-to, and Eugene feels bold enough in the shadow of the tent to rake his fingers through Shelton’s hair and pull him in for a quick, chaste kiss. It’s more than he’d dare to get away with normally during the daylight hours, but his good mood is making him reckless. He’s still too captivated by the way Shelton had looked by the light of the dying sun, too enamoured by how much Shelton is letting him get away with today. 

“You’re pushin’ fire, cher.” He murmurs, and Eugene kisses him again, just for the hell of it. Just so Shelton will snort and push him away, down into a seat on his rack as Shelton drops to his knees on the ground. 

He twists, and Eugene’s gaze jumps from his small waist, his curls, to his hands, diving deep in the rucksack stashed under his rack. When he turns back, in his lap is the fatigue shirt that he’d forgone in favour of an olive drab tee that’s too tight across his chest. Eugene is beginning to wonder if he’s doing it on purpose: asking for an extra small on his small frame. He’s solemn, handsome by the dying light. Hands twisted up nervously in the faded fabric of his shirt. 

“It ain’t much.” He says, again, and drags Eugene’s hand down to his level. Eugene goes willingly, heart feeling all tied up in his chest. His fist is closed around whatever the gift is; pulled from the breast pocket of his shirt, not the one with his pills but the left pocket. Over his heart. Eugene cups his hand underneath Shelton’s, presses his other one over top. Cradling Shelton’s big, rough hewn hands. So out of place at the end of his bony wrists. “Sorry it ain’t wrapped.” 

The absurdity of the notion makes a laugh bubble up in Eugene’s throat. “Wrapped?” He asks, “What in hell would you wrap it with?” 

Shelton doesn’t reply; his eyes flit away. “”S important that you have it.” He says, like Eugene hadn’t spoken, and then he draws his hand away.

It’s a coin; a dime. Rubbed so worn that the face is nearly smooth, and tarnished dark by Shelton’s skin. It’s strung on a tattered piece of leather cord, darkened with sweat and age, strung through a tiny, rough cut hole drilled through the top of it. Eugene closes his hand around it, quick, as Shelton’s hand twitches back to it as though to grab it from him. 

“Don’t.” He murmurs, and draws his closed fist to his chest. “What is it?”

Shelton, sweet and near-shy in the steadily dropping light, turns his face away. His expression is difficult to read, but Eugene can’t help but catch the nervous twist of his hands in his lap. “”S a good luck charm.” He mutters, and his hands clutch at his knees. “‘S silly superstition. My Gramma made it for me, years ago.”

Eugene uncurls his fingers to look at it again, to take it between his fingertips and rub at the tarnished, smooth face of it. The movement goes easily; fingertip sliding into the worn path that Shelton had left with the same motion. Shelton watches him, wary, silent. FDR’s head is a ghost lost to the press of his thumb. “It’s yours?” Eugene asks, and Shelton inclines his head. “You’re giving it to me?” He nods again, and Eugene tears his eyes from Shelton to turn back to the gift in his hand. “Oh, Shelton,” He murmurs, “I can’t take this from you.”

“You’ve gotta.” Shelton replies, all traces of his lighter mood leached away under the weight of this moment. “I want you to.”

“Why?” The necklace has settled into the grip of his hand like it’s always been there, like it was meant for him. He scratches his thumbnail across it, catching on the just-raised pictures on the reverse; he struggles to put an image to the touch. The olive branch, the torch, the oak. 

Shelton shrugs, dropping his eyes to the ground. “I dunno if I really believe in superstition,” He says, one hand coming up to curve around Eugene’s calf. “But I ain’t ever been badly hurt while I’ve had it on me, this whole time in country, if that means anythin’.” His gaze climbs up, and the expression in his eyes is something reserved and very unlike him. In increments, Eugene realises that he’s embarrassed. “Maybe luck ain’t real but I’ve had it so long that somethin’ in me must’ve rubbed off on it, right? And maybe it’s enough that I want you safe and you’ve got somethin’ that I’ve been safe around for so long.”

“Sure.” Eugene murmurs. “Intentions.”

Shelton’s face lights up, a small smile tugging at his mouth as he snorts, and ducks his head again. His hand around Eugene’s half squeezes, once. “Yeah,” He says, “Exactly like that.” Shelton sounds relieved to be understood, and Eugene sympathises with the wordless, senseless _belief_ in some things that can’t be explained. Isn’t it just like religion? Isn’t it just another way to pray?

“Shelton,” He says, sliding his hand home in his curls, waiting until he glances up to say, “Thank you.” The knowledge that Shelton is trying his best to keep him safe even while he’s not around is beyond touching. He finds himself at a true loss for words. He trusts Shelton to understand that he’s thanking him for more than the gift. 

Shelton presses his forehead to Eugene’s knee, and Eugene scratches his nails through the short hair at the back of his skull as he hums in pleasure, face hidden. Eugene wants to stay in this moment forever, Shelton on his knees in front of him, the line of his body relaxed and pleased, the soft evening sunlight casting long, long shadows across the camp as it rustles with quiet, steady activity. Something about the moment feels safe, and different to some of the desperate times they’ve shared together. Eugene’s next words come easily, like they haven’t been sticking up in his throat for as long as he would care to remember.

“I wish you could stay.” He murmurs, those awful selfish words that he’s been holding back and holding back. “I’m scared of what’s going to happen to me once you’re gone.”

Shelton raises his head, eyes piercing and sad through the gloom of their shadowy tent. It’s a long time before he speaks, seeming to dredge the words up from deep inside him. “Your fears’re my fears.” He murmurs eventually, tilting his face into Eugene’s touch without taking his eyes from him. Something overwhelming is rising in Eugene, right behind his eyes. “Do you really want me to stay?” Somehow, Eugene knows that if he asked, Shelton would.

“No.” He admits, and curves his thumb over the high sweep of Shelton’s cheekbone. “No, never.”

“I would.” 

“You won’t survive a second go around.” Eugene murmurs, and means it. The way Shelton cuts his gaze away shows that he knows it, too. The knowledge that he’d do it anyway is heady, almost terrifying. A kind of power that Eugene feels unfit and unwilling to wield. They’ve never spoken of love, but he feels it; caught behind his breastbone like a caged little bird. He sees the same in Shelton, too. In the small, passing touches he goes out of his way to land on Eugene, in the softness of his expression when he thinks that Eugene can’t see, or isn’t paying attention. 

“I’m gettin’ an early-out.” Shelton murmurs, voice small and apologetic. A strange kind of resignation settles over Eugene all at once, and he buries his fingers in Shelton’s curls, holding his gaze until he adds, “Just after the New Year. Ain’t no point keepin’ me up to my date, they said.” 

Resignation. Helplessness. Eugene can’t see the difference in them, not when he feels so buried up to his neck in it. The sadness that he thought that he’d feel is missing; drowned in complete and utter powerlessness. He can’t do a thing to change it, and the epiphany is almost freeing. “Promise you’ll write.” He says, holding Shelton’s precious, sharp little face in his hands. He blinks, slow like a cat, hand coming up to catch loosely around Eugene’s wrist. “Don’t disappear.” 

“I won’t.” Shelton replies, turning his face to kiss Eugene’s palm as his eyes close. He’s still on his knees, still small and sweet and leaned halfway across his lap as he says, “Can we forget about it? About the whole damn thing, for a while?”

Eugene snorts, and releases him, unable to bite back a smile as Shelton reaches up to grab his face and kiss him. Soft, and slow, interrupted only by the rueful smile Eugene just can’t contain. “Yeah,” He murmurs, tilting his head as Shelton noses at his ear, teeth just grazing his earlobe. “Sure, I think we can.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading guys!!!! and i just wanna take a sec Here at 60,000 words to thank everybody for all the continued support and excitement and enjoyment of this fic!! it really means a lot to read comments from you guys, or talk to people on tumblr/receive asks; this fic is very much my little baby (i'm projecting a guesstimate of 100k words when it's finished, yikes! so maybe it's my big baby) so i'm just so happy that people are enjoying reading it as i'm enjoying writing it! please keep letting me know what you think, you're all wonderful, and i'm on tumblr at getmean if anyone wants to chat more :^)


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter, the last chapter, and the following chapter are originally like one HUGE long section in my word processor, so apologies that it's all broken up - each chapter should flow completely into the next one... i recommend a skim of the last one to refresh ur brain for this one :~~) i should just upload like 10k word chapters but then we'll ALL run out of fic and i'll have to take a hiatus to write lmao so this'll do for now while i'm still writing at the same time i'm uploading new chapters :^)
> 
> enjoy!

Forgetting means finding L’Eau, again. Finding Burgie, and beer, and all four of them collapsing together to watch the movie that’s being put on. _It’s A Wonderful Life_ , with Donna Reed getting her fair share of hoots and catcalling as the lot of them descend further and further into a comfortable, festive drunkenness. It means Shelton leaned up against Eugene’s front just as he had been that time Eugene’s paranoia had spiked, close and slight and warm when Eugene wraps an arm around his chest and pulls him in closer. He smells of warm skin, sweat, his knees pulled boyishly to his chest as he laughs at the movie. Eugene feels lighter than he has in a long time with his selfish words put out into the open, with everything laid out on the table between them. It leaves him free to enjoy Shelton’s weight against him, to enjoy the thready stirrings of drunkenness in him that warm his cheeks and makes him bold enough to worm his hand under Shelton’s tee and over his stomach. Soft, just below his navel, and warm; Eugene can feel every laugh that comes out of him, and it sends such a wave of affection crashing through him that he finds all he wants to do is squeeze him. An odd sort of joy, considering the situation. He scratches his fingers over the hair on Shelton’s belly, and grins when he squirms against his front, ticklish. 

“Do you think James Stewart is handsome?” Shelton whispers, right in his ear, and Eugene can hear the teasing smile in his voice. “Wouldja fuck him?”

“Would you?” He murmurs back, and Shelton tips his head back against Eugene’s shoulder as he laughs.

“I would.” He says, mock-solemn, eyes roving over Eugene’s face as a smile cracks his own. “Gene,” He breathes, low under the noise of the movie. His eyelids dip, something sly in his gaze. “Wouldja fuck me?”

Eugene snorts, wiggling his fingers under the tight waistband of Shelton’s pants as he murmurs, “Wouldn’t ya like to know?” low and quiet in his ear. His fingers are met with hair, bare skin, and the fact that Shelton isn’t wearing any underwear shouldn’t make him hotter but it _does_. The alcohol is making him bold; quite possibly _too_ bold, judging by the way Shelton laughs and moves away from him.

“Quit it.” He hisses, grinning, just as Burgie turns around to shush them. They both attempt to act natural, like Eugene isn’t half hard and flushed to his ears. The cover of darkness is the only thing that saves them, even with the way Shelton looks between Eugene’s knees. Rumpled and smug, drunk as anything. 

They don’t make it to the end of the movie.

Eugene feigns tiredness, too much beer, a headache. Shelton comes up with some half baked excuse to go follow him and check on him, to which Burgie barely responds to. L’Eau is asleep on his shoulder; the beer he’s certainly not old enough to drink legally having gone right to his head. Burgie himself is pink cheeked and jolly, engrossed in the movie and tired enough that he barely notices them leave at all. 

Eugene bumps up against Shelton, the two of them drunk and ungainly and in high spirits. Easy to forget there’s a war going on, with a ceasefire and enough miles of base around them. Easy when Shelton’s pawing at Eugene’s shirt before they’re even inside their lean-to; pushing the absolute limits of what they can get away with as he sways into Eugene’s chest and nips at his ear. 

“Just a couple beers s’all it takes, huh?” Eugene says, smiling into the kiss Shelton tugs him into. Hot and slow, deliberate as he teases at Eugene’s lip with his teeth before drawing away. 

“I’m a cheap date.” He purrs, finally winning his battle with the buttons on Eugene’s shirt, thumbing over his nipples as he ducks his head to kiss at Eugene’s throat. “What’re you gonna do about it?” He asks, muffled against Eugene’s skin as he grazes it with his teeth.

“Jesus,” Eugene mutters, tugging Shelton close to him with a hand on his ass, the other clutching at the tight line of his waist. “Everythin’. Anythin’.” He can feel Shelton hard against his hip, and he pulls at him harder, settles his grip on his ass until he has Shelton rolling his hips up against him. 

“You want it like that?” Shelton asks, that demure, teasing lilt to his voice. His accent is heavy, thick from his drunkenness and his arousal. He grips at the nape of Eugene’s neck, and Eugene can feel sweat on his skin as Shelton tucks his forehead close to his own. He wants him underneath him, inside him, over him. Anything.

“How about I suck your cock and think about what I want while I’m at it?” 

Shelton snorts against his cheek, lips just grazing Eugene’s as he turns to him. His eyes are preternatural through the darkness; burning right into the soft meat of Eugene’s head. He feels hypnotised by them, like he’d do anything as long as Shelton keeps those eyes on him. “Now that’s some festive spirit.” His sly smile cracks into a grin as Eugene squeezes his waist, backing him up until he sits down hard on his rack. 

Their position almost mirrors the one from earlier; Shelton knelt at Eugene’s feet as he had uncovered his vulnerable little superstition, his plan to keep Eugene from harm. Precious little prize. It swings forward into dead air, now, freed from Eugene’s shirt as he leans forward over Shelton’s thighs to pop the buttons of his fly open. It seems fitting, that he can show Shelton his feelings in a way the other man would respond to; speechless, physical, that heavy love. 

Shelton moans as Eugene gets his hand on him, quiet and low, a helpless noise. It triggers something territorial in Eugene, something primal and protective. He’s red with love, filled up and brimming as he buries his face in Shelton’s lap, nipping at his hip as his hands come to curve under Shelton’s ass. 

“C’mon,” Shelton murmurs, over-eager, bratty. He tugs on Eugene’s hair, pressing his hips up until the wet head of his cock presses to Eugene’s cheek. “Genie, please.”

“You ain’t ever had to wait before?” Eugene murmurs, pressing his nose into the hair on Shelton’s stomach, nipping at the roll of fat there from how he’s sitting. Above him, Shelton makes a noise of frustration, and his fingers twist in Eugene’s hair. Just enough pain to make his cock jump, hard and uncomfortable in his pants.

“No.” He says, petulant, and Eugene grins up at him. 

“I don’t believe that for a second.” He says, and Shelton just rolls his eyes at him, a grudging smile pulling at his mouth. He smooths his hand through Eugene’s hair, down over his cheek to cup his jaw, his thumb pressed just _so_ to the middle of Eugene’s lips.

“Baby,” He murmurs, and Eugene lights up at the pet name; opens his mouth just a little so he can curl his tongue around the pad of Shelton’s thumb. He tastes like salt, like skin. When he bites down, Shelton’s smirk grows. “I don’t wanna wait.”

It’s now Eugene’s turn to roll his eyes, but he tilts his face up for a kiss anyway, feeling far too biddable and full of love to deny Shelton what he wants. There’s no such thing as waiting between them, and so he tugs Shelton closer to the edge of the rack and wastes no time in swallowing down around him. 

“ _Fuck_.” Shelton hisses, making a low, pained noise of pleasure as Eugene takes him deep. He practically doubles over; hands coming once more to tangle in Eugene’s hair as he pulls off him, sucks at the head of his cock until Shelton is swearing in a soft, steady stream, before taking him down deep in his mouth again. He can’t get enough of him, can’t be closer to him; sucks at him hot and dirty as he moans in muffled pleasure around the hard length of Shelton on his tongue. Everything. His hands in Eugene’s hair, cupping the nape of his neck, fingers tracing down his face to feel where his spit slick lips are stretched around the shape of Shelton’s thick little cock. It’s all too much and not enough and Eugene’s head is swimming with drunkenness and breathlessness as Shelton pushes his head down, and Eugene goes willingly; makes a small sound of affirmation as he flicks his gaze up and meets Shelton’s own. Green eyed, hooded; pupils blown so wide they look black. His mouth drops open on a near-silent moan, and then Shelton is pushing his hips up into Eugene’s face.

Eugene takes it, scrabbling at Shelton’s hips in a desperate attempt to pull him somehow closer as the other man begins to rock his hips up into Eugene’s face; fucking his mouth faster and faster as tiny moans slip from his open lips. He bites them, trying to keep quiet as they hear footsteps nearby, and then more and more, and voices. Eugene can’t tear his eyes away from Shelton’s face, blurry from the tears in his eyes as Shelton takes everything he wants from him. His face, half-lit by distant, scattered light; screwed up in blank, speechless pleasure. That expression just toeing pleasure and pain. Eugene finds he can’t look away for even a second, grip so tight on Shelton’s hips that he’s sure they may leave marks. Shelton’s hand flat on the back of his head, his ass coming off the rack with a rattle of his belt as he thrusts _deep_ into Eugene’s throat.

Eugene sees stars. He can feel tears in his eyes, and then Shelton mutters, “Jesus, I’m gonna cum,” and pulls his cock from Eugene’s mouth in one smooth movement. He’s left gasping, blinking away his tears as he watches Shelton squeeze at the base of his cock to keep himself from tipping over the edge. Just the sight of it, hard and flushed, slick with Eugene’s spit, makes him want to swallow it down all over again. Have Shelton fuck his face hard and deep until he can’t breathe. 

“Fuck.” He mumbles, more to himself than Shelton, and shocks himself with how broken and ragged his voice sounds. He massages his throat, and Shelton laughs, a low, smoky noise. 

“You said it.” He says, leaning down to kiss Eugene, slow and deep. His tongue curls against Eugene’s, filthy, before he breaks away and gestures for Eugene to join him on the rack with a jerk of his head. “C’mon, boo.”

He scrambles up, knocking his knee hard into the metal frame his air mattress lies on in his haste. Shelton laughs at him, eyes crinkling as he tips his head back against the mattress, and his grin still lingers as Eugene slides his hands over his sides; over the bumps of his ribcage and across his nipples. He reaches for Eugene; tugs him down against his body until Eugene can feel his cock pressing hard and insistent into his belly. A roll of his hips gets them going again, as wordless as they have to be to remain stealthy. The creak of the bed frame is the only thing that gives them away as Eugene pins Shelton with his palm pressed flat to his sternum, working his hips down against Shelton’s own. He surrenders immediately to the touch, body melting into the mattress as he lets Eugene take over. 

“You like that?” Eugene murmurs, voice low in the still night air. Distant sounds of continued festivities reach them, but their side of the camp is nice and quiet. He grinds down harder, and Shelton makes a low noise of pleasure. His hands clutch at the corners of the mattress, thrown over his head as he turns his face into his bicep. When Eugene ducks down to catch the full pout of his mouth in a kiss, he takes the weight of Eugene’s body braced through the hand on his chest with a grunt, lungs heaving against the pressure. “Tell me.” Eugene says, mouth at Shelton’s ear as he stills in his movements. He doesn’t know how Shelton is getting off so hard against him like this, not with the rough catch of Eugene’s still-buttoned pants against his cock, but he supposes Shelton’s always liked a little bit of pain with his pleasure.

When Shelton replies, his voice is breathless, tight. “Almost as good as my cock down your throat.” He breathes, and unclenches one hand from the mattress to grab at Eugene’s ass and pull him closer. His eyebrows are drawn together; expression tugged between frustration and bone deep need. “C’mon, Genie.” His hand slides under the loose waistband of Eugene’s pants, clutching at his bare ass as he jerks his hips up again. The wet head of his cock is leaking steady on Eugene’s hip, no doubt leaving a mark that Eugene will blush at in the morning. “Get these off.” His hand skates around to the front of Eugene’s pants, struggling ineffectually with the button fly he can’t twist his wrist properly to reach. 

Shelton’s own pants are still tangled around his knees, and he kicks them off onto the ground as Eugene takes his weight from Shelton’s chest and leans back to tug his fly open. He doesn’t pull them down any further than he needs: all he wants is his bare skin against Shelton’s, and so he pulls his cock from his pants before tangling back up with Shelton again. His hands find his waist, fingers digging in hard enough that Shelton gasps, and squirms, a punch drunk smile slapped silly across his face as he hisses, “Tryna break me?”

“You can take it.” Eugene murmurs, one hand dropping to Shelton’s thigh so he can hitch his knee over Eugene’s hip and grind into him properly. Shelton throws a hand over his mouth to muffle his moan at his words, and Eugene grins, tightening his grip on Shelton’s thigh. It’s silly, juvenile, to be rutting against each other like teenagers in the dark, but Eugene can’t get enough of it. Can’t get enough of Shelton. Spread out underneath Eugene like he’s all his, hands tangled in Eugene’s hair as his chest heaves with the sounds he’s having to bite back. Eugene can see it in his face, can feel it in the tensing of his thigh in Eugene’s grip: he’s close, worked up from Eugene’s mouth and brought right back to the edge again by the sensation of Eugene’s cock pressing smooth against his own. “Are you gonna cum?” He breathes, slowing the motion of his hips.

Shelton makes a noise of frustration, tugging on Eugene’s hair as his hips jerk up to try and chase the feeling. “Maybe,” He murmurs, voice tight, and his hand slips to Eugene’s nape as he tugs him down to his level. “If you stop fooling around.”

“Kiss me, then.” Eugene says, and grins as Shelton rolls his eyes. “Humour me.”

“I can get myself off, y’know.” Shelton mumbles, but kisses him all the same, his fingers on Eugene’s nape five precious points of pressure against his pulse.

“Where’s the fun in gettin’ yourself off?” Eugene asks, and kisses him again and again, until there’s a desperate, needy edge to the way Shelton moans into his mouth. He only breaks from his lips to spit into his palm, snorting at the way Shelton shivers at the action, and goes back to exchanging those slow, biting kisses that Shelton seems to love so much as his hand comes to wrap around both of their cocks. 

“Oh my god.” Shelton mumbles, hand curled in the hair at the back of Eugene’s head as he shifts his hips up into his grip. He bites at Eugene’s lips, and his expression is dazed when Eugene pulls back a little to watch him; eyelids so heavy Eugene can barely tell if they’re open, a smile unfurling his mouth as he presses the crown of his head to the mattress, fingers tightening in Eugene’s hair as his back arches. When he speaks, his voice is rough, sly. “You wanna cum on my cock, huh?”

Eugene chokes on a laugh. “You gotta dirty mouth.” He says, and Shelton grins, his heavy-lidded gaze lancing right through Eugene.

“Answer the question.” He murmurs, just barely loud enough to carry, and his fingers twist _hard_ in Eugene’s hair. Eugene’s hand stutters in its rhythm, and Shelton’s grin turns shit-eating. “Go on.”

Eugene’s throat still feels raw from the way Shelton had fucked it. An ache, one he knows he’ll feel every time he swallows, smokes, eats. “I’m gonna.” He croaks, and Shelton pulls him down to get his mouth on his as they rut together. Their kisses turn bruising until they’re doing little more than panting into each other’s open mouths as they wind tighter and tighter. They’re covered in a thin sheen of sweat; Eugene’s shirt sticking to his back as he works his hand faster until Shelton is spilling all over him with a low moan, quickly yanking him over the edge just moments later. 

They share a cigarette in the afterglow, once Shelton has cleaned the cum off of the two of them with his sweat stained t-shirt. Once Eugene’s heart rate has settled down and Shelton manages to tear himself away from the sweet, chaste kisses he’s peppering all over Eugene’s sweaty face.

“Quit it.” Eugene mumbles, batting at Shelton’s face gently. He bites his hand, eyes alight with amusement. 

“Your voice is shot, boo.” Shelton flops down next to him, the two of them piled together on the narrow mattress. The air fills with the smell of smoke, and a glance to Eugene’s side finds Shelton dropping his Zippo to his bare chest as he puffs on his cigarette to get it lit. 

“And who’s fault is that?” He asks, voice catching in his throat just enough to prove Shelton completely right. He grins, eyes sliding hooded and dark his way.

“Seems like it was all on you.” 

Eugene grunts, swallowing against the ache in his throat. “Maybe you’re right.” He murmurs, and then, “Can’t blame me for thinkin’ you wouldn’t be able to do much damage.”

Shelton chokes on a lungful of smoke, sputtering with laughter as he coughs out, “Hey, I’ve never had any complaints!”

“You hear me complainin’?” Affection heavy in his chest, Eugene rolls onto his stomach until he’s laid up halfway across Shelton’s chest. He’s red-faced, eyes teary from his coughing, and at Eugene’s grin he sucks his teeth and glances away.

“Pushin’ it.” He mutters, and laughs to himself, eyes sliding back to Eugene as the grin he’d been holding back blooms on his face. “Ya hear me? Pushin’ it.” His fingers come to tangle in the mess of dog tags and the newfound luck charm around Eugene’s neck, and it’s that and the naked affection in his eyes that belies the tone of his words. 

“I hear ya.” Eugene says, and drops a kiss to Shelton’s chest. The night has dropped dark around them, unnoticed for favour of more pressing matters, and so Eugene can just barely make Shelton out by the dim light. The curve of his smile, the light of the moon catching the glint of his eyes, the vague shape of his profile as he turns his face away and exhales smoke into the still evening air. It sounds like the movie had finished long ago; Eugene can hear drunken carolling some distance away, and a loud, meandering conversation about the state of the war that seems like it’s happening right outside their tent. He plays with Shelton’s dog tags as they lie together in silence, wrapped up in this feeling of closeness, of love. Shelton smokes, sweat drying tacky on his skin as he stares up at the roof of their lean-to.

“Thank you again.” Eugene mumbles, finally breaking the sleepy, sated silence between them. He scratches his thumbnail over the face of one of Shelton’s tags; over the embossed letters there. _Aramis_. He’d never known Shelton had a middle name. Shelton makes a questioning noise, and Eugene adds, “For the gift, I mean.”

“Don’t mention it.” Shelton murmurs, and his free hand comes to drop into Eugene’s hair, shifting a little as Eugene’s bony chin digs into his chest. “Anythin’ for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!!! lemme know what u THOT


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof please do remember i had to cut this scene up really awkwardly (which i SUPER regret right now) so please do have a glance at the very tail end of the last one to make sense (i'm so dumb!)

The sentiment is heady, and reminds Eugene of just how far they’ve come. He thinks of that nervous, awkward first touch of his hand to Shelton’s, that night so many miles and so many weeks ago. He thinks of the touches that followed, the long sleepless nights of talking, that sun-drenched room in a house in Saigon. It's incredible, what could bloom in just five months. “You excited to be goin’ home?” He asks, and surprises himself by how little the question stings. He’s curious, he really is, and he can tell that Shelton second guesses it. His eyes flick down, something measured and searching in them before he raises an eyebrow and shrugs, bringing his cigarette back up to his lips.

“Dunno if excited is the right word.” He mutters, eyes drifting back to the ceiling as he settles against the bed. “Nervous, I guess.” The cherry of his cigarette flares in the darkness.

“What’re you gonna do?”

Shelton sucks his teeth; a considering noise. “Dunno.” He murmurs. His eyes dart; sightless in the dim tent. “Lotta things.” He’s silent for a time, and Eugene lets it stretch: gives him the room he needs to find the words he wants. “Gonna visit my mama’s grave,” He says, eventually, and the camp has dropped so silent that Eugene can hear the burn of his cigarette as he inhales. “Maybe try an’ find Kit’s. Ain’t sure what kinda use it’ll be but,” He shrugs, shifting Eugene with the movement. “I’ve gotta try somethin’. Don’t wanna carry this feelin’ forever.”

Eugene can’t but a name to the feeling rising in his chest at Shelton’s words, and tries his hardest to edge away from it. After all, isn’t he giving the mature thing a shot? “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” He sighs, and looks away, frustration etched into his face. “When you lose someone you spend so long lookin’ back on the time you had with them, just wishin’. Wonderin’. What might have happened if I’d known? What could I have done different? And in the end all that time spent in your sadness don’t make any difference, because they’re still gone and you’re still here, only you’re so tangled up in all the what ifs that you can’t live your life right anymore. You get too caught up in the past, if you’re livin’ like that.” He breaks off, and his cigarette flares again as he takes a drag. His brow is furrowed, that frustration he always finds in expressing himself. Silently, Eugene extends his hand to press his thumb to the three deep lines between Shelton’s brows.

“Don’t fret it.” He murmurs, and Shelton’s face relaxes under his touch. His next words some easier, more measured. 

“And before I never had a problem with it; used to live with my head in the clouds, and it was easier because I was either starvin’, or whorin’, so it was nice to daydream and really get my teeth into that shit. All my regrets with my mama. Then after Kit died, all my regrets about him.” His brow wrinkles deeper under Eugene’s touch. “It don’t fit me anymore. Don’t wanna spend my whole life wonderin’ if I should’ve cut my losses with Kit when I realised he weren’t ever gonna love me, or whether I shoulda stayed home with my daddy just to take care of my mama. It just don’t mean a thing anymore.” He throws his arm over his head, looking so beautiful and effortless with the movement that Eugene can just barely bite back on the urge to tell him that. “Can’t change what happened, right?"

“Right.” Eugene croaks, so taken aback by this rare show of vulnerability that he’s unsure how to respond. The naked honesty in Shelton’s voice is striking something deeply protective in Eugene: he wants to cradle him close, to take away all these big, vast fears that are plaguing what should be a joyous return home. He thinks of L’Eau, with his simple, childish wishes for his homecoming, and wonders how Shelton can listen to _any_ of them without grinding his teeth to nothing. Suddenly, he feels a lot less put upon for Shelton’s catty, venomous nature. He wants to murmur _hold me, leave me, do what you need to_ , but the words won’t leave his mouth.

“I’ve been livin’ against the grain for so long that I’m just fuckin’ _tired_ ,” Shelton adds, like Eugene hadn’t spoke, and Eugene can hear the exhaustion in his voice, can see it on his half-lit face. “I wanna end this fuckin’ chapter of my life already.”

Eugene feels a spike of jealousy at that. Stupid, petty jealousy. What he wouldn’t give for even the opportunity to close the book on this manic, chaotic period of his youth. But the feeling is quickly dampened as his mind rallies: reminds him of just how long Shelton’s chapter has been, and just how far he’s still got to go. “You’ll be done with it before you know it.” He murmurs, “You’ll see.”

“Not with you still out here.” Shelton replies, so quiet that Eugene could almost miss it. For a second, he debates pretending that he had. It’d be the easier way out, to refuse to acknowledge the weight of Shelton’s statement. The coward’s way out, perhaps. He owed it to himself not to take the bait. Just as he is about to respond, Shelton speaks again, his hand coming to settle on the nape of Eugene’s neck. “Besides, it don’t disappear just like that.” He’s silent, for a beat, and then, “You ain’t ever lost anyone?”

 _You, soon_ , is Eugene’s knee jerk response, and one that he thankfully manages to keep to himself. He steps away from it, and lets himself think, but the longer the silence stretches, the more Shelton’s gaze grows more shrewd. Just to head off the inevitable, _’you just don’t understand’_ , Eugene blurts, “My grandmother.” He doesn’t know why he says it, but the image of weak January daylight on the slick black hearse surfaces in his mind. Then, with the murkiness of a half-remembered dream, his aunt’s nude hose, dirty knees, Hamm’s pale, red-lipped face. “And Hamm.” He adds, because it counts. He hasn’t felt the same since. 

“And you felt grief?” Shelton’s eyes are steady and calculating on Eugene’s face. 

“Does it matter?” He responds, and Shelton’s eyes flick heavenward. “Yes, I did.” _For Hamm, still_ , he thinks, but can’t quite vocalise. Hamm’s death is a festering sore between them all: too painful to be prodded, too deep to be healed. He thinks of that breathless, vast feeling of utter hopelessness that had risen in him when he’d seen Shelton with his ear pressed to Hamm’s chest. The absolute certainty that he was dead without even needing to hear the words, or to see the expression on Shelton’s face. The deadened haze that was the true loss of emotion that followed. “It’s terrifying,” He says, “The most frightening thing I can think of.”

“Why?” 

Eugene heaves himself into a sitting position. Shelton moves easily with him, settling his legs across Eugene's crossed knees as they shuffle to fit together on the narrow rack. His Zippo slides with the movement, settling at his navel before Eugene snatches it up. “You know why.” He murmurs, scratching his thumbnail over the engraved initials there. _KM_. No middle name for this faceless, redheaded alter of his. “Memento mori, whatever, it’s not the worst of it. It’s the finality of it. They ain’t ever gonna wake up again, never have a shitty day or hug their mom or nothin’. Scary, how easily people can disappear.”

A long beat of silence follows his words, and then Shelton inclines his head to the side. There’s a smirk playing around his mouth. “That ain’t it.” He mutters, and his eyes flick to Eugene’s. “Why? Why’s grief so scary, Gene?”

Eugene smoothes his index down the pitted face of Shelton’s lighter, unable to break his gaze. “You ain’t ever gonna get a chance to talk to that person again.” He says, finally, and Shelton’s smile settles. “Ain’t never gonna get to apologise, or cuss them out, or do anythin’ that’d make you feel better. Ain’t even gonna get to see their face move, again. They’re just gone, and you can’t do nothin’ ‘bout it.”

“Selfishness.” Shelton says, and Eugene hangs his head. A radio is cranking out that Stevie Wonder Christmas hit, and Eugene finds he can barely reconcile the emotions their conversation is dredging up with that as the backdrop. “Hey, there ain’t anythin’ wrong with it, boo.” He chucks Eugene under the chin, gripping his jaw until Eugene meets his eye and he drops his hand. “’S human nature.”

Human nature. It reminds Eugene of a similar conversation, just days before Hamm’s death. Shelton’s finger; tug, tugging in Eugene’s D-ring on his web gear. Selfishness, and the urge to know every single facet of a person. Were they not the same thing? Was human nature just the drive for solitary human gain?

“What’s it gotta do with me?” Eugene asks, and Shelton’s finger taps the back of his hand. He surrenders the lighter, and watches as Shelton goes through those fluid, second-nature motions until there’s a fresh lit cigarette in his mouth. “What’s it gotta do with grief?”

Shelton tips his chin up, eyes drifting upwards as he plucks his cigarette from his mouth. That smile still plays at the very edges of it; a ghost, near-sardonic. “Everythin’.” He says, smoke streaming with his words. “I’m too selfish to let people go,” He shrugs, and his gaze drops. “Even the dead ones.”

His words light Eugene up all tender, like a bruise. That fleshy, rotting peach give under Shelton’s fingers. “But you wanna try?” He asks, knocking his knuckles to Shelton’s bony knee. He’s still nude, still shameless with the marks from Eugene’s fingers just barely purpling his tawny skin. 

“Sure,” Shelton murmurs, and then his eyes flick up to meet Eugene’s, and there’s something impish, amused in them. “The dead ones, anyway. I’m happy to keep bein’ selfish about you, Gene.”

\-------

The days pass with the predictability that Eugene has come to expect from war. A terrible, terrifying swathe of days, but predictable nonetheless. Eugene isn’t sure exactly when he’d become to numb to the things he sees; death and butchery and more blood than a body should be able to hold, but it frightens him. Beneath the numbness he can just feel the last vestiges of himself pounding his fists on the glass, yearning badly to be let through. Eugene knows this numbness is survival, that it’s for the best, but it doesn’t make him any more comfortable with it.

Shelton has been in an odd mood since Christmas, since their long, vulnerable night together. Antsy, snappish; prickly with Eugene and downright unpleasant to everybody else. 

“1968’s been fuckin’ awful,” He says, out of blue, one day as they’re stuffing their faces with food before they have to saddle back up and head off. “Whole goddamn year feels like it’s been made under a bad sign.”

Burgie, barely glancing up from the tin plate he’s scraping at noisily, says, “1968 as you know it didn’t have much of a chance.”

It had been raining on and off all morning; those driving squalls of rain that drench them to the bone in seconds and disappear after minutes. The kind that don’t seem to need clouds at all: the sky blue and sunlit above the canopy as the heavens thunder rain down onto them. Eugene always thought it felt a little biblical. Shelton always said it felt like God himself was pissing on them. Privately, Eugene thought it was no wonder he was having a bad year, with a mouth like that.

“I don’t mean for _me_ ,” Shelton snaps, and his meal is sitting cold and abandoned just inches from his face; hand and plate aloft as though he’d forgotten he was midway through eating. His lip curls, doglike. “The whole damn awful business with Tet just started it all off, and then Dr. King is killed, Bobby Kennedy is killed, and then all those kids riotin’ in Chicago.” His knuckles are pale around his spoon, and Eugene finds he can’t take his eyes off him. He’s burning up, all vindictive rage and white-hot fear. “It’s a bad fuckin’ omen, I’m tellin’ you. It’s cursed.”

“What,” Burgie drawls, that indifferent drag to his thick Texan accent, “You don’t think bein’ out here up to your ass in VC and goddamn mud blood and bullets all year ain’t contributed even one bit to that?”

“We went to the moon.” L’Eau pipes up, mouth full of food. Eugene is watching them argue like it’s a tennis match: silently, completely rapt. 

“We went _’round_ the moon.” Shelton snaps, and then turns his gaze back to Burgie. “I’m tellin’ you, it’ll be a different America we’re comin’ back to.”

In the months in which Burgie has known Shelton, he’s learned exactly what buttons to push to either de-escalate or escalate a Shelton situation. His face is bland, voice placid when he murmurs, “Fine, tell usall how the fall of civilisation is goin’ when you get there.”

Shelton’s expression twists. Escalation. “I’ll leave you find out for your goddamn self.” He says, “Like I’ll be writin’ you once I’m home.” He sucks his teeth, the sound full of derision. “Like I won’t have better things to do than that.”

Eugene catches his eye, and Shelton glances away, expression closed off and angry. And so the year turns; with little fanfare besides L’Eau bemoaning the fact that he still wasn’t home, and with Shelton in a sour mood that didn’t look like it’d lift before he had to head back to the world.

“Are you really afraid?” Eugene asks, later, when they’re tramping along some endless dirt road just like every endless dirt road he’d seen before. Predictability, again. It was there in brief firefight they’d had an hour earlier, there in the man they had lost during, and it was here, on this road. Brown dirt and green grass, vast fields stretching out and out around them until it came up short against the dark wall of the jungle, or the blue of the horizon. When they got to walking like this, Eugene always became surer and surer that there was no world outside of it: like they were rodents on some kind of fucked up endless wheel. 

“I ain’t afraid of shit.” Shelton answers, brusquely, and his eyes don’t stray from the back of the man in front. Eugene watches his profile, the familiar sweet slope of his nose warring with the hard line of his mouth, the tight set of his jaw. When he speaks next, his voice is low, and he bumps closer to Eugene, conspiratorial. “Didja hear they decriminalised it, in England?” He doesn’t say what _it_ is, doesn’t give Eugene time to answer before he barrels on and mutters, “Didja hear the West Coast is safe?” 

“From _what_?” Eugene asks, confused. Shelton just bugs his eyes at him, shadowed behind the rim of his helmet. “Oh, you’re kidding.” Eugene says, rolling his eyes as he turns his attention back ahead to the endless dirt track. “What, you’re gonna go start a commune in fuckin’ England, or California? That ain’t you.”

“Maybe it is me.” Shelton hisses, voice low and hushed. “Maybe I’ll find out who I am in someplace where it ain’t illegal to be me.”

They march in silence for a minute, and Eugene can feel Shelton gearing up to say more so he cuts in before him, heads him off with a, “Jesus, is that what you’re afraid of?”

“Ain’t you?” He shoots back, and Eugene can barely believe they’re having this conversation. Drenched in sweat, surrounded by their buddies, on this road with no end in sight.

“I gotta admit,” Eugene snaps, because he’s feeling cornered and uncomfortable with the sudden surfacing of this topic, “It ain’t high on my list of priorities right now.” 

“Well it is on _mine_.” Shelton mutters, and Eugene can’t help but make the connections. Jailed, in Louisiana. God knows what else has happened to him. Eugene doesn’t want to burst his bubble and tell him he probably won’t be much better off anywhere else; decriminalisation or community be damned, so he keeps his mouth shut tight.

“Worry ‘bout gettin’ home, first.” Eugene says, trying to shy away from the annoyance that’s still lurking in him. He doesn’t like to be reminded of the realities of the world waiting for them; likes to stick his head in the sand just as Shelton likes to give into his own paranoia about it all. 

“’S the same damn thing.” Shelton shoots back, always having to get the last word in. Eugene doesn’t respond, feeling too rattled by the injection of reality into his predictable day. He’d worked hard for his numbness, for the predictability; the thought of having to do it again, back home, stung. No, he hadn’t heard about England, he hadn’t heard about the West coast. The knowledge that Shelton had a way to find out lit something very close to jealousy in him. He’d never had community. He probably never will, and the knowledge is an ache like thorns in his side. That rotting peach pit is rapidly curdling his stomach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! god, it's all about to kick off
> 
> just wanna take the time to link [my tumblr ](http://getmean.tumblr.com/) once again because that is where i'm most easily reached, and also wanna bump the [soundtrack](https://open.spotify.com/user/alicerogers299/playlist/7pqRfEuSza0ADvtzgWgChe?si=f-GanXdATdujHCAGr-p26g) i've made for this fic! it's got every song that's mentioned in this fic (more or less), so it's a pretty fun listen, and super easy to listen to the songs mentioned within to help set the mood


	21. Chapter 21

But despite unhappy rumblings from Shelton, the days between Christmas and the New Year all run together in that particular quality that the final moments of the year have. Blurring past as if part of a conspiracy to take Shelton from Eugene as quickly and slyly as possible. A fast, inexorable slide, leaving Eugene to clutch at the flowing sands of time with no luck. Shelton’s date comes around quicker than he can blink, and before he’s aware of it, Eugene is watching Shelton stuff his things haphazard into his pack with an uncomfortable, selfish sadness brewing in him. 

“You did it.” He murmurs, watching as Shelton sniffs at a t-shirt before balling it up and cramming it into the pack after the rest of his personal effects, little that he had. 

Shelton grins, gaze dipped down as he tightens the drawstring on the bag. “I guess I did.” When his eyes meet Eugene’s, they’re a sea of anxious trepidation and near-excitement. 

Eugene is aware of how tenuous Shelton’s good mood is, and so he bites his tongue to keep himself from spoiling it. No more monologuing. No more heavy conversations. He was going to slap a smile on his face if it killed him. 

The morning is a mad rush. Eugene only gets to see Shelton off by the grace of God; his turn on patrol is switched with someone else after a frantic half hour which he spends pulling at his cuticles and trying to mentally map every square _millimetre_ of Shelton’s precious, tired face. Twice, he almost jumps the gun and says goodbye to him right there, so sure that he’ll miss Shelton leaving that his heart is thudding fearful in his chest. Everything he wants to say and everything he knows he should keep to himself clog his chest, that damned rotten peach pit lodged in his throat, that hard stone consequence of his love. 

“Are you happy?” He asks, and Shelton pops his head up, eyes curious and big in his thin face. They’re sitting in their lean-to, opposite bunks but the shelter is so small their knees bump despite it. Eugene is gripping the metal frame of his rack just to keep him from picking his cuticles any more raw than they are already, and Shelton leans forward just enough to ease a hand free.

“I’m feelin’ a lotta things.” He murmurs, and smiles ruefully as he turns Eugene’s hand over, those big, rough hewn fingers tripping over his palm. He taps at the band of his ring. “My mama used to read palms, didja know?” Eugene shakes his head, eyes on Shelton’s face as he feels him trace along his skin. It’s a snapshot perfect moment, and it’s one that Eugene takes care to cement in his memory; Shelton eyes downcast, curls caught in the high morning sunlight, careless, gorgeous distraction on his face as he says, “Yeah, used to peddle to tourists.”

Whatever he’s about to follow that curious little tidbit up with is lost, then, as a boot who Eugene doesn't recognise pops his head down into the entrance of their lean-to. Eugene rips his hand from Shelton’s, jumping about a mile as the kid says, “Sledge, I’m switchin’ with ya.” His gaze jumps from their touching knees, to Eugene’s red face, and to where Shelton’s hand is still propped intimate and open between them. He opens his mouth, and Eugene catches the turn of Shelton’s head from the corner of his eye, and the kid shuts his mouth. “Uh.” He says, “Is that alright?”

Eugene stumbles on a thanks, all his swollen up goodbyes and promises and empty, sad words falling away as he realises his time with Shelton has grown. By a scant half hour at the most, but Eugene is so used to counting the torturous seconds between bullets that a half hour feels a lifetime.

Shelton takes his hand again, and the two of them sit with their heads ducked close together, both watching Shelton trace the lines on Eugene’s palm like it means a thing. The distant jungle chatter is drowned out by the quiet roar of the camp, and some mad, near-Asiatic part of Eugene’s brain finds that he misses it. They had been flown out on patrol the day after Christmas, and so Eugene still feels tender from it. Raw, his frayed nerves still too close to the skin for comfort. Adjusting to the relative normalcy of camp becomes a little bit harder with every patrol.

Shelton’s finger presses at the top of Eugene’s palm. “Your love line is interrupted.” He mutters, and jabs at the mere millimetre of skin that staggers the line there. “’S broken.” His eyes flick up. “D’you know that?”

“I do now.” Eugene murmurs, and finds that he doesn’t want Shelton to take his eyes from him for even a moment. The moment sharpens, clarifies: his hand in Shelton’s larger one, the two of them huddled together in the tight humid heat of their lean-to for the last time ever. Suddenly, it all becomes too real, and Eugene has to bite the side of tongue until the physical pain overtakes the well opening up in his chest. Fear is an energy coiling in his muscles. He wants to ask what it means, but his vocal cords are strangled with the lightning bolt of realisation that had hit him. Eugene hasn’t spent a lot of his time in Vietnam living in the moment, and with this sideways jolt into the present, he’s beginning to realise why. He can’t tear his eyes from Shelton’s face, even as he glances down to assess the issue of Eugene’s love line again, and he’s left staring at the sweet, curling crown of his head in rictus horror.

“Instability.” He murmurs, and strokes his thumb across Eugene’s palm with a gentleness he hasn’t seen from Shelton before. “Lotta hurt.”

Eugene half wants to plug his ears and not listen, whether he believes in this sort of thing or not. Something in the air feels tenuous, fragile. “Pretty bad news, doc.” He mumbles, lips barely moving as he eats up as much of Shelton as he can with his eyes. Shelton’s mouth lifts in a smile.

“Ain’t the end of the world.” He says, and ducks his head to press a kiss to Eugene’s tragic, portentous love line. “Look at how it ends right before the Mount of Jupiter.” He traces the line; Eugene dutifully follows. He taps it. “That’s true love. Pure love.”

Eugene squints, dubious even as his spirits lift a little. “How d’you know?” He asks, suspicious. Shelton grins, and Eugene’s fingers twitch in his grasp with the wave of affection that crashes over him at that. 

“My mama had just the same.” He says, and his brows pull together as he drops his eyes back to Eugene’s hand. “An’ she never loved wrong. Misguided, sometimes, but never wrong.” His eyes flit back up, his gaze intense on Eugene, whose mind staggers a little; attempting to break away from his own fearful realisations to catch onto the thread that Shelton is dangling in front of him in true Shelton fashion. “Do you know what I’m sayin’?”

His hands are closed tight around Eugene’s, and it’s obvious in the widening of his eyes that he’s attempting to communicate something beyond his abilities to Eugene. “I think so.” Eugene replies, mind whirring through Shelton’s words. “Yeah,” He says, understanding blooming in his mind. “Sure, I do.”

Shelton squeezes Eugene’s hand once, and then releases him. His eyes still hold that intensity; wide as they dart from Eugene’s face, to his hand, to the narrow peek of camp that they can see through the front of their shelter. “”S important you do.” He mutters, whatever he can see outside holding his attention; gaze turning sharp, hawklike. “Hey,” He says, attention drawn back to Eugene after that split second of distraction. He cocks his head to the side. “You still write in that book of yours?”

“Less.” Eugene admits, trying to plot the trajectory of Shelton’s thought process and failing. “Why?”

“Lemme write something,” He murmurs, leaning forward over his knees to tap a knuckle to Eugene’s thigh. “Promise I won’t look.”

Eugene surrenders it up; pulled from the depths of his pack as he hadn’t touched it in weeks. Days have begun to blur together with the monotony, and he finds himself less and less willing to reflect on his days as times passes. He feels less like he’d one day like to look back on this, too. Gone is the idealistic boy who had seen this whole war as an adventure, a learning curve. Something to harden him up and make him a man. He watches Shelton scrawl in his notebook; left handed, wrist twisted awkwardly as he writes with that same single-minded intensity that reminds Eugene of him on speed. So much had changed in five short months. If Eugene ever saw Shelton again after today, would he even recognise him? 

The motion of Shelton snapping the book shut drags him away from the spiral his thoughts are beginning to take a turn for. He holds it closed; the pages crinkled from the humidity, the binding beginning to fray a little, and hands it back to Eugene with a murmured, “Don’t read it until you need to.”

“How am I gonna know when?” Eugene asks, and Shelton rolls his eyes at him. He knows him far too well by this point to recognise when Eugene is being purposely obtuse.

“You’ll work it out.” He says, and waits until Eugene tucks the book away before returning to the task of repacking his things. 

“I can’t decide whether that’s ominous or comforting.” Eugene says, shoving his pack away under his bed. He watches Shelton for a moment more, and then adds, “I’m glad I’m gonna see you off.”

Shelton snorts to himself, ducking his head down under his rack to fish out a pair of balled up socks from its recesses. “You weren’t gonna miss it.” He mutters, stuffing them into his bag despite how dirty they look. “I could tell.”

“Damn right,” Eugene says, and Shelton’s gaze settles on him, fond and warm. “Woulda deserted if I couldn’t.”

“Sure, for the ten minutes it’ll take.” He mutters. Eugene ignores him, just wiggles his hand into the pocket of Shelton’s shirt in search of his lighter. Shelton lets him, sitting back on his heels as he watches Eugene light his cigarette. “Lemme have one.”

“Smoke your own.” Eugene mumbles, plucking his cigarette from his mouth to accept the quick, undercover kiss Shelton drops on him as he stands. “You’re gonna be back in the land of unlimited cigarettes, soon.”

“Ain’t I lucky?” He deadpans, smile twisting mocking as he knocks something against Eugene’s arm. “I want you to have this, too.”

“Another gift?” Eugene asks, hand coming to touch his strung dime almost on reflex. Shelton shrugs, and in his hand is a tattered little paperback; the front cover of it hanging on by a thread. Shelton passes his hand over it, self-consciously. “You already gave me something.”

“And now I’m givin’ you somethin’ else.” Shelton insists, and Eugene takes it after a moment of hesitation. “’S my favourite book. You’ll get more outta it than me, now.”

“You sayin’ I’m gonna be sitting on my ass a lot?” Eugene murmurs, smoothing his thumb down the wrinkled, cracked spine. It’s an old, old copy of _To A God Unknown_ , older than the two of them even; wartime babies that they are. “I _knew_ you could read.”

Shelton just grins, and Eugene wonders just how important this book must be for him to lug it all around Vietnam for a year. He flips through the pages; humidity-waved and yellowed; cracking as he turns them. “You really want me to have this?” He asks, hefting it in his hands. Heavy. Just how much of Shelton is between the pages of this book?

“You always talkin’ ‘bout wanting to know me.” Shelton says, and bends down to heft his pack onto his shoulders with a grunt. He must feel Eugene’s mood drop; his hands going limp around his new book as he raises his eyes to meet Shelton’s. For a mad, tight moment, he’s afraid he’ll cry. And then, Shelton drops him a wink, mouth curling with a smile. “Give it back to me when you’re done, okay?”

That same feeling from just a handful of minutes earlier surfaces again, that frozen, dreadful horror. All at once, Eugene realises that this is it. The true test of whatever this thing that has been growing between actually is. Robotically, he follows Shelton from their lean-to (what would soon be Eugene’s and a _stranger’s_ lean-to, he realises, with a little lurch of sadness), the poor, well-loved Steinbeck still clutched stupidly in his hands. 

The noise of camp is flattened under the sound of a low helicopter, then; a Huey kicking up all the dry dirt and sending their clothes flapping as it drones past them to the designated helicopter zone. Finality settles into Eugene’s bones. 

“Can I come?” He asks, and Shelton knocks his elbow to Eugene’s, that soft, fond look still lingering on his face.

“Lemme say goodbye to Burgie and Jay.” He murmurs, and Eugene hangs back, unable to keep a straight face in front of their friends. He clutches at the dime around his neck, thumb settling comfortingly into the worn groove across the rubbed smooth face of it. His mind is oddly blank, nerves jangling just under the surface as his eyes follow the path of the bird; the deadly dark beat of the rotor blades as it settles onto the dusty ground in a cloud of dry dirt. It seems impossible to think that the sight of a Huey normally brought with it joy, relief. It was guardian angel turned awful harbinger now: conspiring with the rest of the damn world to take Shelton away from him. 

Shelton catches back up with him before his thoughts take a turn for the poisonous, and Eugene drops his hand from his necklace to pull Shelton into a tight, desperate hug. One armed, _To A God Unknown_ crushed between them, and Shelton doesn’t waste a beat before he throws both his arms around Eugene and embraces him back. 

“I coulda waited another lifetime for you,” He whispers, fast, breath hot against Eugene’s ear. His arms tighten, hands clutching in the back of Eugene’s shirt like he never wants to let him go. “I’m sorry the war rushed us.”

Eugene’s heart squeezes in his chest, thumping out of rhythm for a beat as he buries his face in Shelton’s neck. It’s a sickly, lovesick lurch, like panic but somehow worse. What had he ever done to deserve the sadness and the love currently carving out a hole through his sternum? White phosphorous in his guts, burning right through his body until there was nothing left to burn. He’d seen it happen, once; an incendiary round gone rogue. He’d never be able to scrub the image of the poor man from his mind, but God knows he’d never known it could hurt like this. 

“Jesus.” Is all he can say, all he can dredge up past the ache of tears in his throat, until he finds his voice and mutters, “Write me, please.”

They break apart, and Eugene does his best not to follow as Shelton takes a step back, eyes darting around even as his fists curl and uncurl at his sides. The wanting between them is tangible: Eugene wants to live in the tight clutch of his arms. “I promise.” Shelton says, solemn, and he jerks his chin up; that old, dreadful mask settling back over his features. 

“Are you gonna see your brothers?” Eugene asks, because he has to, because he feels sick in the pit of his stomach with worry. He can’t stop catastrophizing, can’t stop imagining what might happen to Shelton once the Corps cut him loose. Hungry, homeless, or worse; hustling and getting into trouble again. Shelton’s lip curls.

“I ain’t gonna pollute them with my shit.” He murmurs, and looks away, towards the Huey that’s gonna take him away from all this. From one war to another, it seems. “And they ain’t gonna pollute me with theirs.”

His tone is very final, but Eugene tries again, nonetheless. “Look ‘em up if you’re in trouble, please.” He murmurs, fussing with the collar of Shelton’s shirt just for the excuse to be close to him. He hears someone shout Shelton’s name, the unfamiliar one; _Merriell!_. 

“Sure.” He says, ignoring it. Eugene can tell he’s humouring him, and considers for a split second making him promise, but dismisses it. Shelton may be a good many things, but honesty’s not among the traits he possesses.

 _Another lifetime_ , Eugene’s mind echoes back at him, and he clutches at the naked honesty that Shelton’s tone had been laced with like it’s his last resort. “C’mon,” He manages, and claps Shelton on the shoulder as he takes that final, painful step away. The memory of his hug lingers: tight, a warmer gesture than Eugene had expected, for some reason. Shelton doesn’t look the type to give a good hug. “You got the world waitin’.”

Shelton embraces him again, tight enough to squeeze the breath from his lungs, holding him for just a mere handful of seconds before he makes a small noise against Eugene’s neck, and they separate. A few men are milling around now, a couple other early-outs or men who’ve done their time, and Eugene notices Shelton straighten up and step away just as he does. “Keep your head down.” He mutters, and tugs on the strung dime around Eugene’s neck, that flirtatious little touch. His eyes hold all the emotion his words can’t, and Eugene finds himself caught right up in it. The _whump_ of the Huey’s rotor blades are such that he finds himself straining to hear what Shelton says next; eyes glued to his mouth to catch it. “Remember what I said.”

Eugene wants to ask: which part? Like he could ever forget anything Shelton has said. Anger affection annoyance and _protection_. He thinks of Shelton, blood awash down his face, holding Eugene down into the dark soil as bullets whizzed over their heads. The pull to say what he so badly wants to wars with his more reasonable, sensible side. He still has over half a year left in this country, and if he wants to keep his head he has to hide from more than the VC. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” He settles on, and the words feel limp and unsatisfying in his mouth. He hopes to God that Shelton can read Eugene’s face as well as he can read his. “Take care of yourself.” He adds, and Shelton tugs once more in the worn leather cord of his gift to Eugene. His own seal of protection. 

The last glimpse of Shelton that Eugene gets is the back of his head; curls thrown askew by the breeze as he throws his pack into the bird and hefts himself up into it. That delicate, vulnerable nape of his neck, bronzed by the Vietnamese sun and downy with light hair. Eugene can almost feel it under his fingers, his hand thrown over his eyes to shield them from the sunlight as he watches the Huey take flight, kicking up a whirlwind of dusty earth once more. Shelton is lost to the dark belly of the helicopter, no matter how much Eugene strains his eyes, and so he surrenders himself to watching the Huey until it’s little more than a black dot on the horizon; swallowed by the bright blue expanse of sky. It happens so quickly that he finds himself standing there alone for a time, hand over his eyes and his mind blissfully, stupidly blank. His mood is an odd one. Joy, and jealousy. Abandonment. Loss.

“C’mon,” A familiar voice cuts through his mindlessness, and a hand lands heavy on his shoulder, jolting him from his reverie. At the end of it, Burgie, grinning, eyes squinted against the high noon sun. “Jay’s gotta mean last supper brewin’ up. Usin’ up all the stuff his mama sent that he’s been hoardin’.”

It takes Eugene a minute to find his voice. “I’m not hungry.” He says, woodenly, and Burgie’s grin stretches.

“Since when has that stopped ya?”

Eugene lets himself get herded back the way he and Shelton had come through camp together; Burgie’s arm locked around his shoulders in a way that’s both companionable and firm. He lets him, too in his own world to care. It almost feels _normal_ , the way in which the rest of the afternoon unfolds, and Eugene begins to feel distinctly guilty for thinking that as the numbness wears off. The space that Shelton left isn’t the yawning chasm that he’d thought it would be, and how relatively _okay_ he feels sends him into a silent spiral of nerves over the mishmash of food that Jay has served up to them. Does this mean he was convincing himself of his feelings for Shelton? Or was it all going to hit him at some indeterminate time in the future, and send him crumbling? Once, stupid, childish tears prick at his eyes, but he conceals them well enough behind the haze of a cigarette from the pack Shelton had left for him on his bunk. Just one of the many small gifts he had left Eugene.

Burgie seems to sense his distraction and bullies him into a few turns around the camp to clear his head. They don’t talk, and the pressure to act like he isn’t affected by Shelton’s leaving drops right away as Eugene realises in increments that he doesn’t _need_ to. All his life, he’s felt so on edge and scrutinised for every move he’s made that he finds he’s forgotten that it’s normal for men to bond, and for men to miss their friends. Especially in a place like this; friendships are fast and intense. Already he feels like he’s known Burgie all his life, already it feels hard to believe that L’Eau hasn’t served that little brother role in his life forever. 

“I’ll miss him too.” Burgie offers, gruffly, some time around their third loop of the camp. His face is pink from the sun, or perhaps from embarrassment, and he ducks his head down when Eugene glances at him. 

“I worry about him.” Eugene admits, quietly, and for a time the only noise between them is the sound of their boots on the ground. “I expect you do too.”

The air between them feels tense with half-acknowledged emotion. Burgie clears his throat, and tucks his hands behind his back, brow wrinkling. “I think it’s very difficult to not worry about him.” He murmurs, and throws a sidelong glance Eugene’s way. His expression is veiled, careful. With a lurch of all too familiar fear, Eugene realises that Burgie _knows_. Just as he’d suspected, what, a month ago? Two? Time is a slipstream but Eugene remembers that gut churning anxiety, the cold fear. Burgie’s eyes on their touching bodies, and his dismissal of his own paranoia as just that. 

He’s surprised by how little it effects him, now. The fear ebbs, unsure under Burgie’s gentle, blue-eyed gaze but receding nonetheless. “Do you think he’ll be okay?” He asks, and Burgie’s gaze slides away as he shrugs, plucking his cigarette from his mouth with a long exhale of smoke. 

“Ain’t never seen him get himself into a scrape he can’t get himself out of.” He says, and the last of the fear seeps away with the grin he levels at Eugene. “Hell, he’s gonna be back home with a warm meal in his belly before we even get our socks dried out.”

Eugene can’t shake the knowledge that Shelton doesn’t have anyone waiting for him at home, but half-heartedly returns Burgie’s grin despite it. “I s’pose you’re right.” He murmurs, and then the careful look is back in Burgie’s expression, and Eugene snorts, dropping his gaze to the ground. “Jesus, Burgie. You ever get tired of lookin’ out for everybody all the time?”

“Naw.” He says, rueful. “I figure in life you find a thing you’re good at, and stick to it. Can’t be unhappy that mine is so flexible, huh?” He knocks his elbow against Eugene’s, a fond smile on his face as Eugene chuckles. “Ain’t never gonna be outta work.”

“As long as this place don’t make you jaded.” Eugene mutters, dragging his feet. The afternoon is dropping into that low, evening light already; just the barest golden glow to everything as the sun dips low behind the line of the jungle. He wants to delay the inevitable; a night spent alone to fret and obsess and miss Shelton. 

Burgie laughs; loud, right up from his belly. “I ain’t got the ego to be jaded.” He says, and laughs again, resting an elbow on Eugene’s shoulder as he sags, overcome with pure amusement. Eugene grumbles, and shakes him off, biting his cheek to hide his own smile. “Jesus, jaded. The luxury.”

They walk a little longer, until the cigarettes and the pounding of his feet against the ground start to work their magic on Eugene. His head feels clearer, and though the picture of L’Eau sitting alone outside their adjacent shelters stings, it doesn’t do any more than that.

“Feels weird bein’ a man down.” Burgie mutters, and all Eugene can do is agree. “Ain’t had to deal with that since, well.” He fumbles, and Eugene can see Burgie making the same mental sidestep around the tragedy of Hamm’s death that Eugene himself does. “You know.”

“I know.” Eugene replies, and then their evening is lost to several games of cards which don’t feel the same without Shelton betting all he has on them. That, and Burgie’s futile attempts to keep him from doing it, and Eugene from accepting the bets. 

Eugene retires to bed early that evening, oddly exhausted from the emotions of the day. _To A God Unknown_ is waiting for him on his rack, and Eugene loses himself to the first fifty pages or so of it before the light dips too low to see. The enormity of the gesture still weighs on him, especially as he reads deeper into the book and notices the scrawled, smudged notes in the margins, the heavy underlining, and how most of the pages are dogeared and well-thumbed. This, and his good luck charm. He’s sure it means something bigger, something grander than he can wrap his mind around in that moment. The scribbled notes are mostly pencil, and blurring with age, half of them written in Shelton’s odd, pidgin French. Eugene tries to read them anyway, straining his eyes in the low light until he gives himself a headache and needs to set the book down.

He wants to be able to enjoy this first and last night of sleeping alone for what it is: a moment of rare privacy, a moment of even rarer quietness, but finds himself completely unable to. Shelton’s empty bunk is a silent void to his side. He hadn’t realised how accustomed he’d become to sleeping with Shelton’s breathing, his rustling around and smoking as a backdrop, until he tries to bed down for the night and sleep eludes him. He feels bogged down in what he mistakes as sadness at first, but upon closer inspection reveals itself to be fear. Fear, for himself, of the unknown. For Shelton going home and then never hearing from him again. It keeps him awake and wired and blinking into the blackness of what used to be Shelton’s side of their shelter, long into the small hours of the morning. 

When sleep does come for him, it’s that sucking dark tunnel he always associates with the near-lucid nightmares he’s begun to have since he’d become more and more embroiled in Vietnam. He’s half-awake, half-aware of the nightmare he’s slipping into without the power to yank himself away from it into wakefulness. His eyes are glued shut, limbs leaden one second, and then he’s feeling the phantom pain of biting hard into his own finger in an attempt to wake himself up, to no avail. Grotesque, demonic faces morph and twist from the darkness at the roof of the lean-to, and Eugene’s teeth sink deeper, deeper, as a hand closes around his windpipe and presses him down into the mattress, _squeezing_ -

He comes awake all at once, flat on his back and gasping up at the roof of the shelter which had been so menacing moments before. His hands by his sides; fingers unbitten. The sensation lingers, that weight on his throat, and he curls onto his side just to escape the ghost of the feeling. Blindly, his hand thrusts out into the darkness, the no man’s land between their racks for comfort, and it’s only when his fingers meet dead air that he _remembers_. Shelton’s hair, tossed boyish and messy by the rotor blades. His whispered voice, fast and low and firm, _I’m sorry the war rushed us_. Eugene draws his hand back, and curls up around the deep well of loss in his chest, unable to shake the last tendrils of breathless fear from his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a nice LONG chapter this week! and the moment u have all been Waiting for and Fearing... lemme know what u thought! and thanks for reading!!! :~~~~)


	22. Chapter 22

Jay leaves them the following week when the next wave of new recruits get dropped off, in a big excited rush that coalesces into a tight, genuine hug from him that Eugene fumbles in returning.

“Take care of yourself.” He says, once L’Eau releases him to gather Burgie up just the same. He grins.

“I’ve been waitin’ for this day since I got drafted.” He says, and his hand is still fisted in the back of Burgie’s shirt, even as he steps away. “I never thought it’d come around.”

His joy is infectious, and Burgie can’t seem to shake the near-paternal smile off his face if he tried. “Still sore that Shelton got the early-out and not you?”

“I don’t care about _shit_.” L’Eau says, his tone rich with satisfaction. “By Friday I’m gonna have clean socks on my feet and a full fuckin’ stomach, I ain’t wanting for anything.”

The tone of his departure is so starkly different from Shelton’s that Eugene is almost feeling a little winded as he and Burgie watch the Huey take off; L’Eau tucked safely away inside. Joy, excitement, rather than the tangled emotions that Shelton’s goodbye had been. He supposes it has a lot to do with the knowledge of what they’re coming home to: he doesn’t have to worry about L’Eau, nineteen and missing his mom over anything else, the rest of his life stretching out in front of him. With Shelton, it’s whole other story, and not once he cares to linger on in that moment. It’s been the topic at the forefront of his mind all week, and it’s nice to have a brief respite. 

“And then there were two.” He deadpans, and Burgie snorts, slapping him on the back as he moves to turn away. 

“Maybe we’ll pick up another little shit to keep us busy.”

Eugene snorts, stuffing his hands in his pants pockets as they dawdle their way back through camp. “Christ, I hope not.”

The camp feels quieter; smaller without Shelton and L’Eau. The gap their departures have left is even more plainly felt than Hamm’s; the two of them had been a strange constant to this war. Monoliths, in the short time they had had together. A reminder that it _was_ possible to survive this. It feels silly to assign that sort of meaning to men like L’Eau, and Shelton; not textbook heroes or near to the likes from the stories their fathers were loaded down by. Ordinary, flawed. Missing home, missing their mothers. Afraid. It makes Eugene feel better that normal men survived war, too. Not just the John Waynes of this world.

But still, their absence hurts. Eugene feels like he’s losing everyone faster than he can cling hold of them. The loss of Shelton hurts like a toothache. It aches in the moments of awakening, when he looks for Shelton before his mind can catch up with him. In the small, dark sleepless hours of the night, or when he’s reading _To A God Unknown_ and comes across Shelton’s intelligible, unfamiliar scrawl. But war is the ultimate distraction, and it’s not long before they’re back out in the jungle, and the ache fades slightly under the fear of a mortar dropping on their damn heads. 

“Grief’s a useless emotion.” Burgie says to him, one long afternoon that they lose to waiting on a Huey to come pick them up. He’s noticed Eugene drifting off; losing himself in the purple curl of smoke from the signalling flare, to the hot sun on his shoulders and the nape of his neck. “You know Hamm wouldn’t want you wastin’ your time like this.” 

Eugene’s hand is clutched tightly around the dime strung around his neck, tight enough for his knuckles to ache. It almost funny, in some far off corner of his mind, that Burgie’s mind still jumps right to Hamm when he thinks of loss. “Ain’t Hamm I’m missing.” He admits, cutting his gaze away as guilt washes over him. The breeze changes direction, throwing the smoke towards the tree line as their LT cusses and yells for someone to light up another. 

Red smoke joins the fray, just as Burgie murmurs, “Oh.” Such a small sound, and so loaded down with meaning. Eugene bites the side of this tongue, just to keep himself in check. “Well, loss is a whole ‘nother problem.”

Eugene snorts. “Yeah.” 

They lapse into silence, and Eugene drops his gaze to the ground, shredding the long, dry grass they’re sat in between his fingers as his mind ticks over. The last few weeks have had the same quality as the weeks after Hamm’s death; cold fear, numb sadness. He misses Shelton, he really does. But the missing is built up and out of the anxiety that all their potential will never come to pass; that they’ll never have a chance to even try and be normal.

“You’ll cross paths again.” Burgie says, with a note of finality in his voice. The bridge of his nose and the high slope of his forehead are pink with sunburn, those honest, blue eyes of his squinted against the sun as he watches Eugene take that in. A smile splits his face. “What, you sayin’ I won’t see you ever again after you leave me here?” His tone turns playful, and he leans forward to smack Eugene on the bicep. “C’mon.”

“Alright, alright.” Eugene says, a grudging smile on his face as he bats Burgie’s hand away. “No, that ain’t what I’m sayin’.”

“Then no problem.”

Eugene rolls his eyes. “You know it ain’t so simple when he’s involved.”

Burgie huffs out a laugh, and then the low roar of the bird rises up in the distance, and they’re interrupted by the LT’s shout of, “Fucking _finally_.”

They load into the helicopter, and Eugene watches the world drop away underneath them as they gain height. To his left, a Marine he barely recognises is clutching his head, blood blooming on the bandage wrapped tightly around it. Another casualty from the firefight that had just chewed them up and spat them right out. Some hadn’t been so lucky, but they were riding up front in the casevac, zippered up safe in their black glad bags ready to return to the world. Eugene is battered and bruised himself, but the luck of Shelton’s little tarnished dime has held. The worst he’d gotten over the past month or so was shallow shrapnel injuries, and once a concussion that had left him dizzy and vomiting for a week. But nothing lasting, nothing dire enough to cut his time here short, yet.

He continues to chip away at the book Shelton had left him; finding himself becoming more and more engrossed in it beyond its invented role as some sort of key to Shelton’s psyche. It resonates with him, and with this period of his life, and Eugene purposely goes back and re-reads sections, poring over them with a fine tooth comb to make sure he doesn’t eat up the mere 180-odd pages all at once. It proves illuminating: he’s always been a bookworm but never a close reader, and without the French skills to decipher Shelton’s notes, he finds himself drawing his own conclusions from the book. It becomes less Shelton’s book but more _their_ book as he reads, adding his own underlining and marks to clutter the margins amongst Shelton’s. It passes the time when he’s on watch, or in the long, waiting moments that war is full of. Keeps his mind busy, keeps him from lingering too long on the intricacies of their situation.

_’Don’t eat your own people’_ , Steinbeck writes, and Eugene listens. 

“Lemme me read it.” Burgie says, during one of their rare long stints at base camp. Eugene, who is curled up in an old camp chair with the book braced against his thighs, barely glances up.

“You won’t like it.”

Burgie scoffs. “What’re you tryna say?”

Eugene thinks of Shelton’s secret French scrawlings. The book feels too intimate for anyone else’s eyes. “Ain’t a single horse to be seen.” He lies, and closes it, keeping his thumb inside to mark his spot. Burgie rolls his eyes at him, visibly put out. The days of inactivity are wearing on him: Eugene can spot it in him well, mostly because he feels the exact same himself. He’s restless to the point where sleep even evades him at nighttime. It seems his body has finally caught on to military time, war time, which means as little rest as the body can handle. He understands Shelton better with every day that passes: understands the Dexedrine and his moods and the hawk-like look in his eye. What a toll it takes, to be this alert at all times and exposed to things too terrible for the human mind to process.

It’s around this time that Eugene begins writing him letters. He does this too in the quiet moments, in the slow afternoons and the days spent hunkered down and sweating and waiting for someone to come take them away. They’re fragments; half-formed too-honest thoughts scrawled in pencil on torn out scraps of notebook paper, and he never sends them because Shelton had never left him a forwarding address. He tries not to let it mean more than it does, and tucks the letters away in the same waterproof pouch his notebook rests in. They’re fragments, nonsensical, perhaps stand-ins for the notebook that he’s begun to view with growing fear and trepidation. It feels like a place to record the memories he wants to keep, and he doesn’t want to taint it with the sickness of the past few months. He doesn’t know how to admit to it the things he’s seen because that means recording and recording means _remembering_ , so he lets the memories fester and wastes time writing to Shelton about the book, about his feelings, about Burgie and Vietnam and how he’d unjammed his own rifle a week ago. 

_Do you remember?_ He writes, eyes straining through the moonlit night as he keeps watch; curled up as comfortably as he can on the front of an old tank. His leg swings free from the vehicle, just inches from a sleeping man’s face. He doesn’t stir. All around him, his platoon sleep the sleep of the truly exhausted, and Eugene writes, _It was before Hamm died. Just right before. You took it from me and smacked it and when you handed it back it worked, and I remember having this silent moment of: that’s what experience means. Do you think I’m salty, finally?_

He writes things he knows Shelton wouldn’t like to hear, because he knows he’ll never have to hear it. 

_You remind me of Benjy, in the book,_ he adds, and chews on the end of his pencil as he walks back through it. _I hope that ain’t an insult. I don’t mean you’re a drunk, or an adulterer._

He tries not to think of Benjy’s sticky end, and folds the letter up to stuff into his waterproof pouch alongside his untouched journal. The knowledge of Shelton’s note lying within the pages of it makes it seem especially daunting; Eugene tucks it back away before he can be convinced to open it and take a look. The time to read it hasn’t come yet. Every bad event feels like the end of the world until the next one takes its place. 

————

Weeks spin by with little to note as they delve further and further into their time in Vietnam. Events that once may have been notable fade away with the sands of time, now, as Eugene feels himself grow more and more exhausted, more jaded. It surprises him to find out he does indeed have the ego Burgie insists is essential to becoming jaded; and then that surprise deflates and all that gets a rise from him anymore are his secret useless letters to Shelton, and his continued careful reading and re-reading of _To A God Unknown_. Everything else is a burst of shock or pain or sickly gnawing fear that rises and crashes as fast as the waves he would watch break on the shore of Mobile Bay. Home seems so far from him that he begins to miss it terribly, for perhaps the real first time in this grand long journey his months in Vietnam have become. His daydreams of home before pale in comparison to the ache in his gut whenever he thinks of Alabama; of the smell of honeysuckle and hot asphalt, of ice cream dripping sticky into the webs of his fingers, the gritty hot crunch of sand between his molars. 

January is cold, compared to the months of fetid summer he had endured when he was still so green that he didn’t dream of home. February is colder, and Burgie bemoans his imagined descent into Asiatic madness as he realises that at some point, sixty-five degrees had become cold to them. 

It’s around this bleak, hard time that Eugene receives his first letter from Shelton. 

Re-supply out in the field brings with it the usual downtime; the usual low grade chatter of six dozen idle men as a handful of platoons gather around to shoot the shit and smoke and hastily pen letters home before the Huey departs. 

“Do you think it’s bad form to ask a girl to marry you in a letter?” Burgie asks, tone mediative from his slumped position on the ground. A sheaf of papers are braced against Eugene’s book, his makeshift desk, and he leafs through them restlessly. 

“Yes.” Eugene mutters, with no hesitation. His eyes are glued to the latest letter he won’t send to Shelton, the one to his parents that he’d half-written and then abandoned shoved underneath. _I think Vietnam is becoming easier at the exact same time it’s becoming harder_ , he scrawls. “Why do you even need to ask that.”

“Ain’t it even a little romantic?” Burgie asks, helpless as he bundles all his papers back up. His expression turns tortured. “Like I couldn’t even wait to ask?”

Eugene snorts, burying Shelton’s letter at the bottom of his pile as he picks back up on his letter to his parents. “How you even got a girl in the first place is a mystery to me, Burg, with you actin’ like this.”

Burgie grumbles, and any further comments he has to make are forgotten in the sudden ripple of movement that marks the arrival of the much-awaited mail sacks. Both Eugene and Burgie scramble, stuffing their letters half-formed and untidy into their envelopes before they join the small crowd around the clerk, bowed under the weight of the sack. Dust rises from the ground as he drops it from his shoulder, and the crowd shuffles closer. The mood is excited, anticipatory, nervous. Eugene wonders if his mother might have sent him anything good, this week, if at all. 

And so begins the long rattling off of names. When his comes around, Eugene is so tuned out and bored that he misses it - the clerk says, “Eugene Sledge?” once more, and then makes a movement to tuck the small bundle of letters away before Burgie nudges Eugene hard in the side and he yelps,

“Oh, me!” 

Half the letters are crinkled as though they’d been wet; when Eugene has a quick flick through them as he wanders back to Burgie’s side, he finds they’re all from his brother. Dated from just last week to all the way back to Christmas. Eugene snaps the rubber band holding them together in his haste to pull one from the stack and tear it open. A semi-recent one from a month ago; dated January 6th and muddy around the edges.

_Gene,_ his brother writes, _Get back to Mom and Pop, they’re worried they haven’t heard from you and so am I. Is mail getting caught up again? I’m out in the boonies and haven’t seen a shower that weren’t a muddy river in weeks - hope you’re having a better time of it up North, you lucky bastard._ The letter continues on in much the same way; his brother details a giant millipede he claimed to have killed with his buddy’s machete that Eugene doubts heavily, and finishes up with another command to write their parents back. Leafing through the remaining letters from him, Eugene realises they’re all much of a sameness, and his heart quiets down in his chest. It’s never generally a good sign to get a big backlog of mail like this, though this one seems more the fault of his brother’s inability to get them to the right man in time, or the right man’s inability to get them into Eugene’s hands. 

“No candy?” Burgie asks, sauntering back over like the cat that got the cream, his own little bundle of letters in his hands. He doesn’t wait for Eugene to respond, still caught up in his brother’s old letters, as he adds, “Danielle wrote me.” He leaves a beat of deliberate silence, to which Eugene rolls his eyes at. “Sent a picture too.”

“Ain’t you a lucky boy.” Eugene deadpans, and then an envelope is being shoved under his nose, obscuring his brother’s long winded story about getting sick off of a can of peaches. “Burg-” He begins, and then he goes limp as he smells the perfume Burgie’s girl had sprayed on her letter to him. Sweet, floral, such a welcome respite from the stink of war that Eugene finds himself drifting with it as Burgie draws it away, laughing.

“Thought you’d like that.” He says, and Eugene blinks, still caught up in the tiny moment of sweet-smelling bliss. 

He doesn’t get a chance to reply before a half dozen other men are crowding Burgie, all after a sniff of his letter and a glance at the photograph. Eugene wanders away, lighting a cigarette as he goes to banish the last vestiges of that scent from his nose. It reminds him of something, perhaps a perfume an old girlfriend had used to wear before he wised up to his proclivities. Either way, there’s something melancholy in it’s normalcy. He finds himself more and more wary of nostalgia, afraid that it’ll trigger some exhausting spiral in him if he began to take stock of where he was and what he was missing. He smokes his cigarette, and pushes the thoughts away, eyes stuck to his mother’s careful script as she fills him in on all the family gossip, as usual.

He doesn’t stray far from the group, but far enough for a little privacy as he lets his head and his heart fill with the news of home. It’s that same dangerous nostalgia he attempts to avoid, amplified in his mother’s words and his brother’s familiar handwriting, so much like his own. Sid had sent him a letter too, as short and mud-stained as the ones from his brother; he’s getting an early-out, and should be home by Easter. Eugene doesn’t like the spike of jealousy Sid’s good news brings, but accepts it nonetheless. He wishes he’d dropped off a letter for Sid with the clerk, and makes a mental note to write him one in time next week as his shuffles to the final letter in his pile.

The handwriting is unfamiliar, and Eugene frowns at it for a second before flipping it over, to find no return address on the other side. Strange. He gathers the rest of his papers into the crook of his arm as he tears this mysterious envelope open, juggling torn paper and familial words as he inches his finger through the tear he’s made. He can’t think who it would be; an aunt? A cousin, drafted just the same and needing advice? A mysterious benefactor promising to whip him away from all of this? Eugene snorts to himself at the last one, and finally wrestles the letter free from its hold; shakes it out of its folds so he can scan for a name, and when his eyes settle on one his heart freezes in his chest.

Anticipation. Giddy excited joy. Eugene can feel himself flushing red as he skims the letter once, twice, fetching up on that name on the bottom each time with a flutter of disbelieving happiness. _Shelton_. He can feel his mouth tugging into a smile, and he’s glad he had the foresight to wander away from the group, to give himself the time to enjoy this moment. Slowly, stupidly, he raises the letter to nose; smells nothing but paper and maybe the barest hint of acrid cigarette smoke. 

“Oh, you bastard.” He murmurs to himself, devouring the letter once more as he paces back and forth, all wrapped up in his own world for a second. His heart is thumping under his breastbone as he reads; he can practically feel everything Shelton wanted to write but couldn’t, acutely aware of how little privacy there is in a letter. 

_’I said I’d write, didn’t I?’_ It begins, and Eugene smiles ruefully to himself, wishing he’d never doubted Shelton’s word. Weeks of radio silence and the pressing weight of the war had left him feeling despondent and hopeless about their chances. He should’ve known better: Shelton does all things in his own time, and not a moment sooner. The letter is short, and doesn’t say much of anything, but Eugene reads and re-reads it like he’s been starved for words. _’Thinking of you, always_ , he signs off, and Eugene presses it to his chest and closes his eyes, trying hard to school his expression into something more normal but failing miserably. No return address, the _bastard_. No way to send his secret letters even if he wanted to.

The letters come every week, after that. Like Shelton can sense that Eugene is looking forward to them, and that it’s becoming the one high point of his week. Burgie watches him with amusement in his expression; Eugene’s excitement tangible as the clerk rattles off names, waiting for his own. Letters from home pale in comparison: all Eugene wants to see is the particular slant of Shelton’s handwriting, his affection becoming more and more brazen as the weeks go by. Some lines he can hear in Shelton’s voice, like he was here with him; he talks about his exploits at home, how America is treating him. Shelton in writing is an odd, barely-familiar creature, toeing the line between restrained and uncharacteristically verbose. 

One day far in the future, nearing the end of Eugene’s war, Shelton writes him, simply; ‘ _Did you hear what happened in New York?_ ’ It’s dated June 29th, 1969; scrawled haphazard almost as an afterthought at the top of the page. Eugene doesn’t, and curses Shelton’s flair for the dramatic until weeks later he finds out from a guy from Ithaca, whose mom sends him the paper when she can. Eugene pens back an impassioned letter, full of rare hopefulness and righteous anger, and tucks it in amongst the letters he’s been continuing to write and save in his waterproof pouch. He has visions of handing it to Shelton one day; so he can read Eugene’s responses and his thoughts and his fears. His diary is beginning to be written more and more in the random scraps of paper he scrawls his thoughts to Shelton down on; the notebook remaining untouched.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!!! the first chapter with no snafu.... he's here in spirit :~)
> 
> the event which snafu alludes to in his letter is of course the stonewall riots!


	23. Chapter 23

In the background of this flurry of new excitement, the war grinds on.

“You know what I miss?” Eugene asks, one sweaty afternoon pulling slack to Burgie’s point. Burgie, eyes darting up and down and side to side, makes a disgruntled noise. His grip shifts on his rifle, and he replies without ever glancing from the trail.

“I’m sure you’re gonna tell me.” 

Eugene grunts, wiping the back of his hand across his sweaty forehead as he tries to keep up with Burgie’s pace. For some reason, his pack is weighing heavier today; April is proving hotter than they’d expected as they’d moved further south towards Saigon. He’s dreading the burgeoning summer already. “Takin’ a piss whenever I feel like it.” He says, and Burgie snorts a laugh. “Feels like I’m back in elementary school.”

“There’s worse things in life.” Burgie replies, and conversation is lost as they step from the path and begin the real work of the day; blunting their machetes against the wall of jungle. 

They sleep out in the open that night, and Burgie smokes a slow cigarette as he watches Eugene leaf through _To A God Unknown_ , battered and bruised and dogeared to hell and back with both his and Shelton’s constant re-reading. There’s barely any light to see by, only the wan half moon above them, but Eugene practically knows the pages by heart, now. His mind has been tripping over that secret glade where Joseph gives up his life for weeks, trying to make some connection but falling short every single time. The exhaustion is keeping his brain stupid and slow, and all he think of is the line, _’This is holy - and this is old.’_. Shelton had underlined it so hard that it pressed through to the pages beneath. 

“What’s on your mind?” Burgie asks, and Eugene thinks, _everything, nothing_. He closes his eyes, and presses the heels of his palms into them as the book flops shut in his lap. 

Vietnam feels both the glade and the thing to run there from. Ancient, sacred. A place that demanded blood. What were Joseph’s words? _’If ever there’s need to lose some plaguing thing, that will be the place to go.’_ His mind only offers him the glinting light off the rippled surface of a brown river. The dappled sunlight that breaks like beams through the shattered canopy. That unerring beauty in the face of so much ugliness. If beauty can exist in a place like Vietnam, then does it not follow that what he and Shelton had could exist too? He’s becoming more and more aware that things like love and war and beauty are less mutually exclusive than he had once thought. 

He’s beginning to understand what Shelton had meant about Vietnam being in his head.

“I’m tired.” He says, finally, voice dropped low in the midnight hour. The faint figure of Burgie shifts, the tilt of a head. Continue. Speak. Eugene does, feeling vulnerable and frustrated and far from home. “Feels like I can’t ever clear my head.”

The thready stirrings of understanding niggle at him, and Eugene wishes for the hundredth time that he could decipher Shelton’s notes in the margins of the book. The novel feels like a treasure hunt, a test, some Bible with the higher meaning just locked away out of reach. Joseph’s consumption by the land. His willing sacrifice as he wets the stone with his blood. The book is escapism as much as it is a riddle. 

“What d’you mean?” Burgie asks, voice soft. The cherry of his cigarette flares through the darkness. 

Eugene makes a vague gesture to his head, and drops his hand to clench tight in his lap. His mind is still racing, almost like that Dexedrine spin. “Just too much up here.” He mutters. “Like I dunno how to quiet it all down.” The book, the book. He can’t help but feel like he’s focusing on it to avoid everything else. “This place just fuckin’ exhausts me, and then I can’t sleep at night because there’s so much goin’ on in my head.”

Burgie hums. “Like what?”

For a moment, Eugene is frustrated with his questions. With Burgie’s calm, measured tone. He doesn’t get why it’s fair that Burgie has his head on right - but then he remembers those long perimeter walks, his careful admittance to Eugene of the necessity of his pacing. The reminder is enough for him to simmer down, to open his mouth and let Burgie thread the thoughts from his mind. “Like I’m tryna find meanin’ in all this but it won’t connect.” He drops his gaze to his hands; to the battered, water-stained cover of the book. “Dunno if I can handle any of this if it don’t mean somethin’.”

“Did it ever?” Burgie asks, and he ducks his head to light a fresh cigarette from the glowing cherry of his old one. Eugene watches, impressed by an officer flaunting the no lights rule, avoiding that illicit flare of a lighter. The jungle stirs in the breeze that follows, and Eugene takes a lungful of smoke-tinged air to steady himself. The question is a hard one; he steps back and back through himself, back to that green recruit with all those ideas of legacy and manhood and rites of passage. 

Eugene shrugs. “I used to think so.”

“Maybe there ain’t no meaning to war.” Burgie offers, and his eyes are kind in the red glow of his cigarette as he takes a drag. “Maybe it’s useless to try and find one.”

“Is that what you think?”

Burgie shrugs one shoulder; a black silhouette against the night. “I think that if you can’t find a meaning then maybe that’s for a reason.” His coughs, clears his throat, and adds, “None of this shit makes sense. We don’t even know if we’re winnin’ or we’re losin’ ‘cause the only thing we got to measure by is _kill count_.” His voice drips with derision, and Eugene sits up a little straighter, interested by this uncharacteristic anger. “If there was a meaning behind it, it’d be easier, but there ain’t.”

“There has to be _something_.” Eugene insists, struggling to wrap his head around what Burgie is telling him. “Right?”

Burgie snorts. “Nothin’ worth losin’ sleep over, Gene.” Eugene follows the path of his cigarette as he drives it into the ground next to him, the light dying in an instant. “Believe me, I want it as bad as you. I’m out here away from my girl and my family, away from the ranch. Wouldn’t it be good if it was all for somethin’?”

Eugene thinks of Shelton’s pale, haunted eyes. Hamm’s bloodied mouth. Was it all for nothing? He finds that a more bitter pill to swallow. Killing and dying for the greater good is one thing, but doing it for nothing is something his mind can’t settle with.

They turn in for the night, or rather Burgie does. Eugene sleeps fitfully, his mind so troubled by his useless search for meaning that he finds he can’t quiet his thoughts down at all. His anxieties merge into his dreams; visions of Vietnam running together with the lush Californian wilderness of Steinbeck’s mind. The stone looms above it all, dark and slick with lifeblood, eerie in the centre of that silent, secret glade.

———

The jungle rings with the silence that follows the first shot; frozen in that split-second of time in which nothing moves, nothing breathes. Time slides taffy slow, and then the ground erupts in sprays of water and wet, dense earth as the bullets rattle deep into the rice paddy they’re all knee deep and stumbling in. 

“Get _down_.” The LT cries, and Eugene throws himself into the putrid stinking water faster than he can think. His hands leap immediately into motion on the bolt action of his rifle as he slips down into that instinctive, animal state that blows everything but _fire, cover, survive_ from his brain. To his left, a spray of bullets hammers into the ground, missing him by barely a foot; the flying dirt coats his face, his eyes, and he scrapes it away with a noise of disgust before refocusing back on the tree line. 

There’s little Eugene hates more than getting caught under fire stuck ass deep in a rice paddy. He feels though he can’t shake the stink of that rotten water for weeks, no matter how many times he scrubs himself raw back under the cold showers at base. He can feel the churned up ground from the bullets sinking under his weight as he crawls forward, propping himself up against the spit of land that serves as a walkway; the ground they had just thrown themselves from. Up the line, he can see the two mortar-men in their platoon attempting to brace the thing against the swampy ground, and then his attention is ripped back as the invisible enemy begin firing again. 

The early June heat is searing a brand into the vulnerable slice of nape that is left exposed between collar and helmet. Eugene wonders just how many of their company had become casualties in the first handful of seconds of fire. Low grade anticipation is sparking through his veins as he takes stock of the situation; the lot of them dug in and trapped. He can hear the LT on the hook a few feet away, him and the RTO hunkered down in the brown water as he relays their coordinates to whoever is on the other end. 

Somewhere in the whole mess of it, Eugene forgets to be afraid. He forgets to feel that nauseous lump of distaste for the violence playing out in front of him, in favour of letting that atom-deep animal urge take him over. The LT’s loud, fast voice fades out into a background hum as the world drops away behind him, and Eugene loses track of everything that isn’t the jumping of his rifle in his hands and the not-so-distant tree line they’re being fired upon from. 

His eye snaps away; catching the movement of a Huey on the horizon, rising up above the trees like some kind of avenging angel. All it takes is this moment of distraction, and then Eugene jerks with the impact of some unknown force, and he’s spun out and confused for a moment. Kneeled up to his hips in dirty water, hands slack on his rifle for a heartbeat before he feels it. A bee sting that keeps burning, and he barely thinks to pay it any mind until he shifts to sight down his rifle and the pain ratchets up higher. Less bee sting, now, and more-

He drops his hand to his side, and watches in blank, silent horror as his hand comes away wet with blood. _Blood_ , running dark red down the lines of his palm, beading hot and vital through his shirt before dropping away to dissipate red and then pink and then nothing, down down into the water around his thighs. 

His first thought is of Hamm; blood bubbling between his lips, his uniform blooming patches of red under the futile press of Shelton’s hands. _The dime_ , he thinks, _the dime_. He raises his bloodied hand to clutch at the dog tags, searching for the familiar smooth shape of the coin amongst them. When he finds it, his heart drops, the world greying for a long enough second that he finds himself catching at the sleeve of the man next to him as he wobbles. “Jesus.” He mutters to himself, face numb as fresh sweat springs up on his forehead. “Fuck.” He can’t feel his lips. 

The burn is spreading over his ribcage, now. Eugene doesn’t dare pull his shirt up for fear of what kind of wound he’ll find underneath. The dirty water around his legs isn’t helping him; drawing the blood out fast and steady as he slumps back onto his ass, making the water wash over his bloodied side. Absently, he’s aware of the noise of the gunship; the artillery they ordered, goddamn _finally_. It shakes the ground, a low, thunderous roll of sound as the artillery pounds into the earth. His ears are ringing with the shock, and a hand swipes over his face and smears blood and mud and cold, sick sweat from his skin. More springs up to take its place.

“Gene.” Says the voice presumably attached to the hand, and Eugene tries to right himself, to sit up straight and stop the rolling of his head on his neck. He feels nauseous. His waist feels like someone is pressing a red-hot poker into it; slow, insistent. The devil’s fucking pitchfork. The sky is blue above him when he opens his eyes, and the slip and slide of the horizon is enough to make him clamp them shut again. “Are you okay?”

“That’s an awful question to ask.” He manages, and uncurls his fingers from the sleeve of the man he’s grabbed to pat the new arms holding him up. “‘M gonna throw up.” He catches the barest glimpse of the medic’s dirty, bespectacled face before he’s lurching to the side to retch uselessly into the water. 

“He’s in shock.” The medic says to some unseen second person, voice cracking as he raises it to be heard over the veritable wall of sound that's the gunships finishing up the fight for them. “Lemme see, Gene.”

The gnawing pain is so much that all Eugene can do is gasp helplessly over the disrupted surface of the water for a second, and then he feels the cold hands of the medic against his forearm, his wrist; gently but firmly pushing his hand away from where he’s cupping at his side. Then there’s the drag of wet cloth over split skin as his shirt is lifted, and the medic is whistling in the sudden quiet that follows a particularly long rattle of bullets. 

The silence is deafening. Eugene exhales a shaky breath, and then winces as the medic presses a wad of gauze over his wound. “Lucky bastard.” He says, sounding altogether more cheerful than he had thirty seconds ago. Eugene tilts his head to glare at him, gritting his teeth at a new wash of pain from his side. “Just took a chunk outta you.”

“And that makes me lucky?” Eugene asks, just as the call comes down the line to stand down. The medic uses the moment of distraction to pour something over Eugene’s wound that stings so sharp that he makes a low noise of pain. “Lay _off_.” He groans, growing less friendly towards his saviour by the minute, now he knows he doesn’t have a bullet burning a hole in his guts. 

“Yeah you’re lucky, ‘cause you don’t gotta be dragged off in a glad bag.” The man mutters, something sharply jovial in his tone. “Ain’t that nice?” His hands make short, practised little movements over the tender, hot skin of Eugene’s side, dragging that gauze and that burning antiseptic this way and that. 

Eugene, surfacing from his moment of dizzied shock just barely, grits his teeth against the feeling and wills himself not to get sick again. Despite the heat of the day, he’s shuddering, teeth chattering as his body tries to make sense of the last handful of minutes. “Jesus _Christ_ that hurts.” He hisses, voice almost drowned out in a random volley of fire. 

“It’ll hurt a lot more when you get gangrene.” The medic replies, and Eugene strains to remember his name; mind foggy under the press of what had just happened. His ears are ringing with the silence that had followed the gunships. The panic that had gripped him so hard when he’d first seen his blood is ebbing, slightly, under the ministrations of the medic’s rough but sure hands. His mind is so blank that it’s almost blissful, almost post-coital in its dreamy nothingness. He thinks of his blood-slick fingers clutching at his strung dime. Has his luck run out?

He doesn’t get time to ruminate on it as Burgie’s head pops into his limited view; white faced, eyes very big in his skull. It’s for the best, he thinks, as he lets himself get manhandled out of the dirty water and his wound is doused down again with that stinging antiseptic. Stitches follow: hasty and rough and painful enough to have Eugene gripping hard at Burgie’s shoulder as he holds back the tears that are aching so badly in his throat. He’s limp when they’re done, exhausted, and the medic gives him a firm pat on the back before he hurries off to go tend to the other wounded without another word.

Eugene hadn’t remembered his name after all, he realises through his daze.

The ambush had been a bad one, an ill-timed one, and Eugene watches dully as medics load those familiar black bags into the casevac, a deep sense of doom settling into his chest. He remembers his early days of this war, terrified and sweating and absolutely certain that it was just a matter of time before he’d be heading off just like that. He feels weak, and exhausted as his adrenaline crashes; chilled to his core despite the heat of the sun beating down on the top of his head. His helmet is in his hands, and he traces the sun-faded marker on the torn, dirty cover of it as his mind drifts. Two hundred and seventy-eight days. He knows without having to count. Nine months, give or take. He supposes it was only a matter of time before the spell broke.

“Here.” Burgie says, wandering over to where Eugene is sat. He thrusts his canteen at him, and when Eugene takes a sip he’s surprised to find sugar water. Burgie laughs at the grimace on his face. “Drink up. You’re white as a sheet.”

“Where’d you get sugar from out here?” Eugene mumbles, taking another mouthful of the sweet water. Burgie taps the side of his nose.

“How’re you feelin’?” He asks, and Eugene does his very best to shrug while not moving a single muscle in his body. His side is radiating pain like he’s been branded: any small shift of his body flares it up sharper, a knife twisting under his ribs. 

“Like I got shot.” He mutters darkly. Burgie lowers himself into a squat next to him, those blue eyes of his very shrewd on Eugene’s face. His scrutiny makes Eugene glance away, the desire to be honest bubbling up inside him. “I don’t feel much of anythin’.” He adds, because it’s just him and Burgie, and he feels less like he has to put on a brave face. He feels embarrassed, for how he had reacted to what turned out to be a minor wound; seeing his own blood had made him panic, sent him faint like a little girl. His ears burn with shame.

“Well you look like hell.” Burgie offers, to which Eugene rolls his eyes. 

“Thanks.”

“But at least you’re still standin’.” He continues, and Eugene shoves his helmet back on just to hide his expression from Burgie as best he can. “Scared the hell outta me.”

Eugene finishes the rest of the sugar water, and hands the canteen back to Burgie. He doesn’t reply, and feels like he shouldn’t have to. His limbs feel leaden with exhaustion, like he’d done more than stand just slightly in the way of a bullet. Again, that shame, and that creeping sense of dread. Perhaps he needed to chalk this up to experience; mark it down as a reality check and keep his chin up, but there’s a festering, secret fear that’s only rotting deeper the longer he lingers on it. For now, he feels so blissfully empty and detached from his body that it’s easy to turn away from the feeling, to bury down deep in another day’s march, in another week of search and destroy.

The wound in his side serves as a constant, aching reminder of his own vulnerability in the days that follow. Every step he takes causes it to burn and smart under the still stained fabric of his shirt, and he’s slow as a result. His first day back at base has him hunched awkwardly under the cold water of a shower, probing gently at his tender side as he takes in his wound for the very first time. Angry, and red; the hasty stitching by the field medic like a jagged black mouth. The sight of it makes him sick to his stomach.

“I think it’s infected.” He tells Burgie, a day or two later. He’s been feeling feverish and tired since their return; can do little more than sleep and stare at the same passage in his book for hours on end. He pulls his shirt up, and Burgie’s brows raise into his hairline. “’S hot.”

Burgie frogmarches him off to the medics tent, and stands by like some sort of bodyguard as Eugene sweats and grits his teeth through having his wound washed out with that awful stinging liquid again. His skin feels prickly and oversensitive; every nerve frayed and too close to the surface with the pain and exhaustion he’s been in for days without a break. 

“You’ve gotta keep it clean.” The medic says, a different one to the guy who’d stitched Eugene up. Eugene bites back on a rude remark; feeling snappish and cornered in his pain.

“’S pretty hard to keep shit clean here.” He mutters, and the medic just snorts.

“Try harder.” He says, and leaves Eugene with a course of antibiotics that mess his stomach up for the next two weeks. 

That night, he scratches his own dried blood from the grooves of his dime, and then pens a letter he’s glad Shelton will never see. It’s vitriolic; he scrawls it half-delirious with tiredness and fever and misplaced anger. _This wouldn’t have happened if you were here_ , he writes, and then feels so guilty and awful for it that he slashes it out, tearing the paper as he does so. He misses Shelton’s protective presence so badly that he aches with it, and he hadn’t realised before he got shot but it’s the only thing he can focus on, now. He can’t help but blame him, if only to shift the responsibility for his own newly vulnerable body onto someone else.

Sunrise, when it comes, finds him blinking sleeplessly at the roof of his lean-to. Betrayal and pain and grief are aching through him like a second bloodstream. Burgie had taken Shelton’s bed when L’Eau had left, and so Eugene has to be especially quiet as he tucks away last night’s angry, regrettable letter. 

“Gene?” Comes Burgie’s half-asleep slur, and Eugene tucks his waterproof pouch down into the recesses of his pack before he responds.

“Go back to sleep, Burg.” He mutters, “’M goin’ for a shower.”

The cold water shocks him back into the land of the living, and he scrubs himself hard across the ribs just to feel it, like some kind of fucked up penance for something he can’t put words to. It’s barely six a.m, and already he’s sweating as soon as he leaves the cold trickle of water that passes for a shower in Vietnam. Back at the tent, he forgoes his heavy canvas shirt in favour of a tee that Shelton had passed off to him. Not that tiny, white thing with the stained pits he loved to flaunt around in, but if Eugene pulls the collar up to his nose he can just barely catch Shelton’s familiar scent. Not a pleasant one; cigarettes and sweat, but it’s _Shelton_ , and the closest thing to him that Eugene has.

He comes to wear it a lot in the days that follow; enough that Shelton’s scent begins to fade under Eugene’s own. Enough that there’s a tiny blood stain on the side of it, from where Eugene’s poor, burning, gouge of a wound had bled through the gauze. He comes to think of it as some extension of Shelton’s protective power: picking up where the dime had failed. The belief brings with it a kind of uncharacteristic recklessness in him. He finds himself taking the Dexedrine the medics hand around at night, equal parts pathetic copycat behaviour and true desire. He feels impulsive, over-brave and under-prepared for what the braveness brings with it. Twice, he misses catching a bullet with his head by some chance act of God, and with these scrapes of luck his risk-taking almost doubles.

“I don’t think I can be hurt.” He whispers, once, in the dead of the night with the speed zipping electric through his bloodstream. His stitches pull as he leans back to fumble his smokes from his clutch belt; a tiny bloom of pain amongst all the aches of the day. Burgie scoffs at him, but not even the fog of the Dexedrine can mask the concern on his face. 

Eugene isn’t sure he can die. He also isn’t sure if he cares if he could. He’s so painfully aware of his own vulnerability that it’s flipped all the way around from caring too much to not caring at all. He writes a scrawled little note into the margin of _To A God Unknown_ , some half-baked thought that’s been rattling around in his head since he’d been shot in that expanse of rice paddy, under that unfeeling blue sky. _The earth takes back what we take from it._ It never feels truer than when he’s pulling point and sinking the blade of his machete into the young green bamboo blocking their parasitic path through. This surety that the world has taken from him what he’d taken from it is buoyant, it’s freeing. His chest feels full up with grief and pain and blue sky fearlessness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! i'm sure you're all ready to yell at me in the comments, but you know i would never do my boy TOO dirty :~)
> 
> also, a friend and i are planning on doing another sledgefu week this year and we'd really appreciate if you'd check out this [poll](https://goo.gl/forms/2nVG4kGRsnfYNNOl1) i made just to gauge interest for another ship week! i'm not sure how many new fans are here as a result of the new rami wave but we did a sledgefu week last year that some of you may remember, and it went REALLY well! so we're really excited at the possibility of another. so cast your vote, let us know! (if you're not too ready to kill me for putting gene through the wringer this week). to keep up with the ship week either follow [me](http://getmean.tumblr.com/) or the [sledgefu week blog](https://sledgefuweek.tumblr.com/).
> 
> also just wanna say at this point in the fic, please don't worry about it getting abandoned or it ending soon: it's over 100k words, i'm still writing it while i'm uploading it, she's a long one but i promise you'll see the end lmao (once i finish it (which will be soon) i will also be uploading longer chapters, so it won't be as piecemeal)


	24. Chapter 24

Sleep becomes the enemy, and it’s only after he spends a whole four day patrol without a wink of sleep, does Burgie quietly pull him aside once they’re returned to base.

“Something up?” He asks, eyes careful on Eugene as he pulls out a smoke, and lights it. “How’re you feeling?” They’re sat in their lean-to, out of the glare of the sun but not out of the heat of it. Eugene’s skin feels prickly and oversensitive from the heat; he swipes the back of his hand through the sweat beading on his forehead, and avoids Burgie’s eyes.

“Been better.” He mutters, eyes on his cigarette as he taps away ash from the end. “Why d’you ask?”

Eugene can sense the hesitation in Burgie’s silence. It stretches; the distant, garbled noise of someone’s radio filling the space between them, and then the first opening strains of some Cream song, and that too is silenced. When Eugene glances up, his eyes find Burgie’s immediately; pale and blue and shrewd in the stripe of light falling through the mouth of the shelter. His expression visibly tightens as their eyes meet, and Eugene can practically watch the resolve settling over him. “I’m worried about you.” He says, simply, and Eugene sighs and throws his head back, eyes fixed sightless on the shadowy inverted V that is the roof of their lean-to. 

“Don’t be.” He mutters, because this is a wholly different creature than Shelton’s concern for him. Ash drifts from his cigarette as he raises it to his mouth, chin sinking to his chest as he avoids Burgie’s eyes. He remembers that odd lurch of honesty that his gaze had invoked in him, that night before he’d been shot, and doesn’t care for a repeat of it. “Just gettin’ through this war the same as anybody.”

Burgie huffs, a humourless approximation of a laugh. “C’mon,” He mutters, and Eugene hears the sound of Burgie’s Zippo, and then the rasp of the cigarette as he inhales. “Even you can’t believe that.”

The floor is astoundingly interesting to Eugene all of a sudden. In the distance, the radio comes back on; The Beatles singing about a barber and his photographs. Eugene does his very best to tune it out, with little luck. _Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes_ , McCartney croons. 

“’S really nothin’ to worry about.” He says, eyes fixed on the battered leather of his boots. “S’all wearin’ on me a little, nothin’ worse than everybody else.” Burgie says nothing, and Eugene is so keyed up and nervous and on his fifth day of barely a wink of sleep that he barrels on: “Shit feels like it don’t matter anymore. Shelton’s gone and Jay’s gone, _Hamm’s_ gone, and nothin’ matters or means anythin’.” He pulls himself up short, breathless, and meets Burgie’s eye. “I just wanna be myself again.”

Once again, Burgie has made him admit to the thoughts curdling in his head. He grins, when he realises, drops his face into his hands with a snort of derision. Gently, Burgie grasps his shoulder, and shakes him just once. Even the small touch alone is enough to have tears aching in the back of Eugene’s throat. 

“You got two months left, Gene.” He says, and his voice is so full of the compassion that Eugene hadn’t even realised he’d been missing that he feels limp with it. “You’ve gotta cut the stupid shit, or you ain’t ever gonna get a chance at feelin’ like yourself again.”

“I’ve _changed_ .” Eugene whispers hoarsely, his hands coming up to twist shakily in his hair. The motion pulls at his side, at his once-festering wound, a dreadful reminder that Vietnam is inside him, now. “My family won’t want me back like this.” The unspoken, _or Shelton_ , looms between them.

To his great embarrassment, his palms are wet with tears. There’s no hiding it from Burgie; he swipes his sleeve roughly over his eyes, breathing out a long shaky breath as he tries to quiet the rush in his head. “I always feel like I’m waitin’ for the next bad thing to happen, but it never comes.” He’s never understood Shelton more than in this moment: that terrible grief he carries with him like a second heart, the bone deep well of anger and sadness he keeps right below the surface. Eugene feels bad for ever growing irritated with the fear he’d had as his date had grown closer; the same panic is gripping Eugene’s chest up just the same now.

Burgie’s hand tightens on his shoulder; a comforting squeeze. “You ain’t alone in that.” He murmurs, and Eugene sucks in another shuddering breath as he attempts to re-centre himself. “And your family are gonna want you back, and everybody else.” Eugene can hear the smile in his voice. “They ain’t gonna know what to do with themselves, they’ll be so happy.”

Eugene wants to believe it so badly that he lets himself sit with the thought in silence, for a minute. “Do you see something different in me?” He asks, quietly. He raises his head, pillows his wet cheek on his hand to cast his eyes towards the slice of light at the mouth of their tent. Beyond it, he can see a few men playing cards, laughing raucously over their hands as they talk. It didn’t seem so long ago that Eugene was in that exact same spot: Hamm and Shelton bickering over winnings while Burgie watched with that amused, near-paternal look on his face. “Feel like there’s no one left who knew the man I used to be.” He mutters, talking more to himself than Burgie.

“Maybe not now,” Burgie says, “But when you get home-”

“What if I don’t?” Eugene asks, dragging his gaze away from the scene outside. The air inside their tent is heavy and humid, blue with the smoke weaving from his forgotten cigarette. He takes a drag from it, the heat of it flaring against his knuckles. Burgie has fixed him with a look so patient that Eugene feels chastised without even having to be told. He drops his forehead to his palm. “Sorry.”

“What,” Burgie asks. “You don’t wanna go home?”

Eugene shakes his head, rolling his forehead on the heel of his palm until he can meet Burgie’s gaze. “It ain’t that. I wanna go home more than anythin’.”

“So what is it?” 

Eugene sighs. “I’m not good enough at livin’ in the future to cope with all this shit. Can’t think about goin’ home and gettin’ all this behind me when I’m dealing with it every day.” He taps ash onto the ground, and the cherry of the cigarette falls with it. He grinds out the the little bundle of embers beneath the toe of his boot. “Shit. Nothin’ feels real and _I_ don’t feel real, and I can’t focus on anythin’ else.”

It’s a half-truth. Mostly the truth. Eugene has omitted his lingering feelings of fear for and resentment towards Shelton for his own comfort; and for Burgie’s. No need to let him know how deep that river runs. No need to implicate him into the tangled mess of worry that is Eugene’s head when he even begins to _consider_ the logistics of their lives post-Vietnam. Just in the same way he can’t picture his triumphant homecoming; Eugene can’t believe the fantasy of him and Shelton having some sort of tearful reunion. It’s easier to push it to the back of his mind before the hopelessness sets in and ruins it for Eugene for good. 

“If it’s any comfort to you,” Burgie says, after a long moment of sitting in the silence that Eugene’s admittance needed. “I don’t think you’re so different from the Eugene I met way back when.” He squeezes Eugene’s shoulder again, and releases him. His eyes are crinkled in a smile. “And he had a lot to come home for, and you sure as hell still do.”

Perimeter duty takes Eugene away from the conversation, and the silent, monotonous walking in circles knocks the last tendrils of madness from his mind. Being back at base has always been a changeable emotion for him; a place of great boredom or great relief, but it’s for the first time in his tour that he feels a sense of comfort in the place. The jungle still looms as watchful and ominous as ever, but Eugene feels at ease with it now; an ease born only from familiarity. In a place like Vietnam, he supposes anything even resembling a home starts to become that, in the end. 

His boots kick up the dusty ground as he patrols, taking in the scent of the early evening air. The smell of mess tent, of the hot dry earth, the faraway lush, green scent of the jungle. He’s always existed here, in some capacity, and always will. For some reason it comforts him, that the jungle has seen him shift and change and warp in this war. Like some record of the man he’d been and the man he’s becoming exists in the same space. He feels seen, and not _watched_ for the first time in a long time. 

He eats dinner alone, having missed Burgie before he was whisked off to the officer’s tent to strategise, drink beer, whatever the hell they got up to in there. He takes his time over it, and takes a lap of the camp just to watch the sun beginning to sink low behind the tree line. The evening is the only time that the heat approaches somewhat bearable temperatures, as long as the breeze has a slight bite to it. Eugene doesn’t want to go hole up back in his stuffy tent, not just yet, so he smokes a cigarette and lets his mind empty of the chaos and confusion that have made up the last few weeks. Him getting shot had been the unpleasant but possibly necessary catalyst of something that is only just beginning to click into place; something he can’t quite put a name to, yet. His moment earlier, while on patrol, is sticking glue-like in the front of his mind. That sudden feeling of togetherness with the forest; something completely out of the blue but at the same time familiar, like it’s always been there and he just hasn’t been able to unlock it until now. 

_All things are one, and all a part of me_. Steinbeck’s words, in Eugene’s mouth. He mutters it to himself, just once, and grins at himself ruefully for it. He feels exhausted, and delirious from lack of sleep, and what seems so poignant to him in the moment will be pure nonsense in the morning, he’s sure.

———

For the first time since he was wounded, Eugene sleeps through the night. And the night after that, and the next. They have a week back at base, in all, and Eugene shocks himself with the turnaround he feels for himself in that short amount of time. 

“Doin’ okay?” Burgie asks him, one sweltering afternoon that they spend down on the river that snakes along the edge of camp. There are a few other men nearby, paddling half-nude in the shallows in an attempt to cool off. Eugene can feel the tops of his shoulders catching the sun already, and he sinks down into the water until only his head is above it before replying.

“Funny what a little sleep can do.” Is all he says, and Burgie’s eyes crinkle as he grins, pushing his wet hair back from his face as he considers Eugene.

“Ain’t that what I always say?” He says, and Eugene rolls his eyes at him. A fish flits up against his foot, slick and cold and invisible in the tea-brown water. He shakes it away, the water sloshing up around his jaw as he does so. 

“I dunno.” He says, tilting his face back to let the sun beat down on it. “I never listen to ya.”

Burgie laughs, a real, belly laugh. Eugene finds himself grinning by reflex; the noise infectious. “Don’t I fuckin’ know it.” He says, and laughs again. “Jesus, don’t I know it.”

“Don’t worry,” Eugene says, surfacing from the water until it laps around his waist. “You’ll get a kid you could boss around like Jay soon enough.” His hand goes instinctively to his side, to pull at the tape keeping the bandage in place. It’s a nervous little habit he’d picked up, and he only realises he’s doing it when his fingers meet wet skin and nothing else. The bandage had come off a couple days ago; leaving the red, new skin to ache in the sunlight alone. He draws his hand away, still nauseated by the wound. 

“I’m gonna have to after you leave.” Burgie mutters, stepping a few paces away to settle on a smooth outcrop of rock. The light from the water throws ripples on the underside of his jaw, on his throat. “No good bein’ an officer when you can’t pull rank over your friends.”

Eugene snorts, and then splashes a handful of water over his hot face, gasping at the shock of the cold. His side aches, the tender skin pulling with the movement. He thinks of Hamm’s blood in the stream, of Shelton’s blood in those leeches, his own dissipating to nothing in the brown rice paddy water. Joseph’s slit wrists wetting the sacred face of the stone within that glade, and the long awaited rain that followed. He shakes his head, just to watch the droplets from his face and hair hit the surface of the water and distort his reflection. Everything was within everything else. He can almost taste the blood in his mouth.

With a lurch of his stomach, the world re-centres. Is that what this is all about? The blinding light of his epiphany disturbs him as much as it settles him. It’s what he’s been aching towards for weeks, now. That half-formed thought rattling around in his head; the glade, the stone, the blood, the trees. Hadn’t Vietnam always been the glade? Hadn’t he, and all the rest of them, been Joseph, the sacrificial lamb? Shelton was right, under that red-orange moon, hours from Hamm’s death. _Part of me's gonna stay in Vietnam until the world fuckin’ dies, and part of Vietnam is gonna be in me 'til I die_. His words echo through Eugene’s head, his voice a pale imitation of that molasses-thick drawl. 

“Gene.” Burgie calls, snapping Eugene away from his distorted reflection in the choppy surface of the river, from his staggering rush of understanding. His eyes meet Burgie’s, and he must look spooked or shocked or _something_ , because his brows draw down as he asks, “Doin’ okay?”

“I-” Eugene shakes his head, straightening up from the bent position he had frozen into. “Yeah, I’m good.” He says, running a hand through his hair as he glances around, refocusing on the forest and the river and the men around them. He clears his throat. “Thought I spotted a catfish.” He adds, lamely, and Burgie’s brows beetle further.

Part of him wants to reveal his epiphany; the bolt of understanding that he’s been coaxing from his mind for weeks. A larger part of him knows to keep his mouth shut about it. Even to him, it sounds far too close to the ravings of a madman, too close to the fantasy of the book Shelton had so innocently given him. He wants to grab Burgie and tell him, let him in on his secret, the secret that had come to Joseph in the same way. Gazing out over his country and feeling that driving rain coming in; _I am the land, and I am the rain._ Eugene smears his hand through his water-borne reflection, and breaks from it, aiming for the muddy bank. _The grass will grow out of me in a little while._

They head back to camp dripping wet and steaming in the heat; the pulse of Eugene’s discovery thrumming like a live wire under his skin. He’s brimming over with the need to tell Shelton about it, and Eugene wishes so badly that he was here to share it with him. Something tells him that he would understand. After all, the book had belonged to him first: and it was impossible not to make the connections between it and Vietnam. Eugene couldn’t understand how it had eluded him so for long. Ever since that naive idea of legacy as the meaning behind his place in war had left him, Eugene had been scrabbling at anything to make matter the things that he was doing and seeing. The legacy of his father had never been real, and could never have held up in Vietnam, no matter how hard he’d tried. World War II and Vietnam were such light years from each other it made sense to measure it in blood, and in sacrifice. Just like their kill count and their search and destroys. Meaningless, at a glance.

It’s not his place to carry on this legacy of war or find handholds to clamber the rocky face of manhood; it’s realising the futility of war against the lasting and the ancient. The glade was there before Joseph and it was there after him, too. He’s a speck on the timeline of Vietnam, and this war is a barely larger blip. His blood soaks into the ground just as hundreds before him, and the land takes it as his sacrifice in the process of renewal. The realisation of reciprocity is staggering. 

“Burg,” He murmurs, something hopeful and brand new sparking to life inside him. “D’you think we missed resupply?”

Burgie glances at his watch, and shrugs. “Maybe, if we don’t get a move on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! and if you're not intrigued or haven't read it already, i do recommend _To A God Unknown_ for anyone who enjoys a good Steinbeck, lmao :~)
> 
> also, as a follow up to the sledgefu week thing i mentioned last week, we now have a poll! if you'd like to cast your vote for which prompts you'd like to see for the ship week, [vote here](https://sledgefuweek.tumblr.com/post/183754915772/hi-guys-the-time-has-come-the-poll-for-the)


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just wanna head this chapter off with an apology that it's so SHORT. no excuses no spoilers, enjoy!

They haven’t, only by a handful of minutes. Burgie swaps out a load of letters he’d written for the ones from his family, and it’s only then that Eugene realises that in the distraction of the past couple weeks, he had completely forgotten to write home. He can imagine his mother is beside herself with worry.

“Aw shit,” He mutters, and then catches the clerk by the shoulder as he moves to turn away. “Hey, can you give me ten? I forgot to write my Mom.”

“Make it five,” The clerk mutters, not looking at him, and as Eugene turns to head towards his rack he adds, “Hey, want your mail?”

“Sure,” Eugene says, taking the little bundle of letters with barely a glance at them. “Thanks.”

He takes ten, and hands his letter off to the clerk, who rolls his eyes. But he takes it, tucks it back into his mail-sack with little more than a tut, and Eugene is absolved from his guilt for another week. 

It isn’t until the evening that he makes time to sit down with his letters; having been putting them off because he wasn’t expecting a letter from Shelton, and because he didn’t have the energy to read his mother’s increasingly frantic gossip. He and a few other men had gotten saddled with filling sandbags all afternoon, and his face feels hot and tight from the sunburn he’s sure he’ll wake up with tomorrow. His easing back into the summers of Vietnam isn’t going very smoothly; his nose and shoulders have been varying levels of sunburned and peeling for weeks at this point. 

He smokes a cigarette as he sifts through his post, sat cross-legged on his rack as he reads. Several from his mother, including a manila envelope that produces a few Hershey bars as he upends it onto his bed; soft and near-liquid in their foil wrappers. The cigarette gets tossed, and Eugene finishes reading her letter with one hand as he dips a finger of the other into the melted chocolate; closing his eyes at the first taste of it. It’s the little things in life, and he makes a mental note to thank her for the chocolates, and to share with Burgie.

He’s so distracted by the candy that he flips through to the final letter in his lap without glancing at the front of it; he shakes the paper out with his free hand, and then freezes as his eyes meet the first line of handwriting that is both not his mother’s and _not_ about Auntie Ruth’s health. 

_I haven’t been completely honest with you_ , Shelton writes, which is so far from the opening line that Eugene had been expecting that he lowers the letter and looks away, out into the wedge of camp he can see through the front of the lean-to. Well. He hadn’t predicted this. 

Shelton hasn’t written to him in near to a month. In the internal pandemonium of the last few weeks, Eugene hasn’t paid it much attention. Letters from Shelton were historically few and far between. He’d never seen him write a single one home in the time they had been in country together, and so he didn’t hold him to any higher standards now he was back Stateside. In fact, Eugene was shocked to hear from him more than twice a month, if that. He writes Shelton more letters than he gets; tucked down deep in that pouch full of unsaid words and memories he doesn’t care to properly record.

Re-centring, Eugene glances back at the page. The timing was portentous, as though the universe knew about his hours-old epiphany. With a rising feeling that Eugene doesn’t care to put a name to, he drops his gaze back to Shelton’s untidy handwriting. _I haven’t been completely honest with you_ , he reads again, and with it realises that the emotion inside him is definitely dread, but puts off naming it for a little longer; drawing out the inevitable. _I never went home to Louisiana. Hell, I never even got on the goddamn flight home._

Eugene lowers the paper again, just to absorb Shelton’s words as fully as he can. When he goes back to reading, he finds he’s half-expecting some kind of _gotcha_ moment, only it never comes. _It couldn’t make myself leave,_ Shelton writes, _’cos getting back to America was the unknown and I didn’t feel ready to take the risk that I’d never see you again._ His words are almost uncomfortably honest; as candid as Eugene has ever heard from him. It lights up a glow of warmth inside him just as it stirs up that age old anxiety. He’d never had Shelton pegged as the impulsive type, but as he reads through the rest of the letter he begins to rethink his approximation of him. _I’m in Saigon. I dunno why I didn’t tell you sooner. I was afraid that you wouldn’t give a shit, or that you’ve been throwing out my letters with the trash. That you’d moved on as soon as the bird went outta eyesight and you realised you only wanted me because I was there and because everyone’s fucking hard up in war for a little affection._

Eugene breaks from the letter once more, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead as he closes his eyes to process all this information. It just toes the line of being far too much. Far too much on a day like this, with Eugene’s wound still aching under his clothes and the light of his realisation still dawning within him. He pinches the bridge of his nose, and breathes out slowly. Jesus Christ, still in Vietnam. The thought chills him. Is Vietnam really so hard to escape?

His thoughts are interrupted by the rude arrival of Burgie’s head, stuck through the mouth of their lean-to. Eugene jumps, visibly, and Burgie grins. “Gene.” He says, and his eyes flick from the chocolate to the letter to Eugene’s face. “Who’s that?” And then, “Mama Sledge sent candy?”

Eugene can’t find it in him to lie. “Shelton.” His thoughts are churning too quick to hide the emotion on his face. “Burg, can someone stay after finishin’ up their year?” In increments, he realises he’s clutching the letter so hard it’s crinkling in his fist.

Burgie’s gaze drops to the letter again. “What, like a lifer?”

“Like just stayin’ in country.”

Burgie’s brow crinkles. “Have to be a fuckin’ lunatic to.” He waits a beat, and then asks, “Gene, you goin’ for food?” 

The evening had fallen into that low, blue light without Eugene even realising. His clears his throat, and nods, eyes flicking down to the letter in his hand. _Saigon_ his eye catches, before he glances away. “Ah, yeah,” He mutters, “I’ll catch you up.” He gestures with the letter, and Burgie’s gaze turns shrewd before he nods and snaps off a mocking salute.

“See ya.”

Eugene takes a moment; re-reading Shelton’s admittance and his fears. The evening grows loud around him, the sounds of the jungle warring with the sounds of camp as it grows busy with activity. Hungry Marines and the whispering of the leaves. A windy night, a cloudless night. Eugene drops his eyes to the last line of the letter; the scrawled sentence heading Shelton’s scratchy, expansive signature. His heart sinks low as he reads it, caught between great sadness and a kind of anticipation that almost scares him. He hadn’t realised how badly he’d been missing Shelton’s presence, his touch, his affection, until his eyes alight on what he’s written.

_I’ve forgotten how to sleep alone,_ he writes, _so don’t make me wait much longer._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! i've been waiting to share this part with you all for so long! it's the last point before the narrative shifts, hence the shortness - we'll be back to regular lengths next week :~) 
> 
> or well, the week after next! i'm skipping next week's update as i haven't been able to find the time to write recently, and figured after this part would be a good place to take the break. get you all ready to see what i've cooked up next :~)
> 
> oh, and also, the sledgefu week prompts are up! find the whole post with all the info over at the sledgefu week [blog](https://sledgefuweek.tumblr.com/)


	26. Chapter 26

When the day comes, Eugene has a hard time taking that crucial step away from Burgie, from Vietnam, and into the rest of his life. The last few months have given him more of an understanding of Shelton’s state of mind on leaving that he’d ever wanted to know; the strange joy and bone deep anxiety are a nauseous curl in the pit of his stomach. He can’t choose between a grin and a grimace. The Huey waiting to take him to Saigon is a confusing mix of enemy and ally, as if that hasn’t that always been the case.

“Stay safe.” Burgie tells him, pulling him into a surprisingly heartfelt hug as they say their goodbyes. Eugene’s pack is a physical entity on his back; weighed down with _To A God Unknown_ and his secret letters. 

“Shouldn’t I be sayin’ that to you?” He manages, voice a little patchy with emotion. Burgie’s eyes crinkle with the smile he sends Eugene’s way.

“I reckon I can hold my own.” He murmurs, and his hand is still gripped tight on Eugene’s shoulder like he isn’t quite ready to release him yet. Last one to fly the nest. The thought makes Eugene embrace him again, hard, hands gripping tight at Burgie’s back.

“Thank you.” He says, muffled into Burgie’s shoulder. “For everythin’.” He can’t bring himself to even begin listing off the things he’s thankful for, but the look in Burgie’s eyes when they break apart tells him he understands. “Look me up when you get home, if you ain’t too busy bein’ married.” 

“‘Course I will.” He says, and then he’s hugging Eugene once more and before he knows it, Eugene is taking those first, wobbling steps into the rest of his life.

His stomach lurches with the rising of the helicopter, reminding him of his first ride in one; a brand new recruit with an unsettled stomach and no idea of what the coming year had in store for him. Eugene feels a whole other person, a brand new man; if a little battered and bruised. He pulls his helmet from his head, bracing it between his knees as he swipes his forearm through the sweat beading on his forehead. Three hundred and sixty-five tally marks, give or take a few. He traces one with his thumbnail. A lifetime. The air in the bird is so hot he can taste it; crammed in with the nervous sweat of a dozen other men headed out for the true unknown. He remembers when Vietnam was the unknown, and has to snort quietly to himself at the absurdity of it. 

In his mind comes the image of Joseph’s wife, the poor doomed Elizabeth, hesitating fearfully in the towering blue shadow of the underpass she had to cross to close the door on her unwedded life. It always comes to him, in times like these. Times where he finds himself teetering just on the razor’s edge between what he knows and what he doesn’t. He feels it now; that stomach swooping feeling of standing at the edge of a huge precipice. Elizabeth had died in the home she had been so fearful to cross through the underpass towards. Would Eugene fare similarly?

_’I’ll be leaving myself behind’_ , she had said, that young girl hesitation from Steinbeck’s pen. Eugene had felt the same fear, that same odd feeling that if he had glanced back as he swung himself into the Huey, he may have seen a fragment of himself settled beyond the shade of the underpass just the same. 

He feels like he’s been split down the middle, and for good reason. The shade he’d left on the ground in Vietnam can’t exist anywhere but there. Too much of him in Vietnam. Too much of Vietnam in him.

The roar all around him of the helicopter’s blades is lulling him into a deep, exhausted kind of brainlessness. His new white noise. He ponders the part of himself he’s missing, wondering just what the anatomy of that fragment of a man is. Not all Vietnam, surely. No, he can still feel the country roiling beneath his breastbone. It’s there in his anxiety, in the quickened singing of his blood through his veins, in the way his eyes scan the land whipping along below like it’s still his job to. The fear of America, of home. The fear of seeing Shelton again.

The two of them exist together in some untouchable, mystic way no matter what the outcome of the next few days might be. Eugene knows that he and Shelton are far too manifest in Vietnam to ever truly untangle from each other; their blood lives in in the water, in the leeches, in that dark black soil of the jungle. Shadows of themselves, borne from their blood in the earth of Vietnam.

With his mind turning towards Shelton, Eugene pulls his letter from the breast pocket of his uniform. The paper is soft, well-thumbed and grimy, and falls away easily from it fold as Eugene opens it up carefully, keeping it from the wind whipping around the interior of the bird. He skims it once, the words as familiar as those in their shared book with how many times he has obsessively read over it, committing it all to memory. Anticipation is a bubble of nervous energy in his chest, threatening to burst. 

Shelton had finally left a forwarding address, on the letter in which he’d revealed all. Eugene had expected a flurry of letters between the two of them now that he had the means to write him, but found himself curiously lost for words whenever he tried to put pen to paper. Once again, he found words failing. The fact that he may get to see Shelton again at the end of it all had made his words pale in comparison: Eugene found himself yearning for the wordless, the incommunicable. His hand on Shelton’s nape. Shelton’s playful little nudges, the way he tilts his face into Eugene’s touch. All those unsent letters are burning a hole in the bottom of Eugene’s pack, but he was too coward to scrawl the name of the hotel Shelton’s been staying at to send them all his way, consequences be damned. His bad days, his sad days. The anger and the vulnerability and all the things he couldn’t bear to remember. 

So no long months of letters back and forth to each other. Eugene had managed to muster words to respond to the bombshell that was Shelton’s letter back in June, and then the line had gone quiet. They had agreed to meet upon Eugene’s arrival to Saigon, and with that they’d both gotten what was needed from the correspondence. All that was left after that was to wait, and Eugene spent his last few oppressively hot months in country on pins and needles, counting down the days until his world turned on its head.

And now, here it was. Firmly on its head. 

If he thinks for even a second about how the next few days will unfold, he feels he could get nauseous from the nerves in his stomach. 

Processing out is a fast, chaotic affair. Eugene lets himself be jostled along in the sea of other lucky Marines destined for the States, helpless to the absolute confusion that seems to come with any kind of bureaucracy.

All too soon, Eugene finds himself signing his name on the dotted line before being thrust from the arms of the military into the roiling crowd of people in the street. He stands for a second, blankly, letting the sun beat down on him as he gazes out over the heads of the rush of people. It had all happened so fast that he found he hadn’t gotten a moment to really take it in; he takes a deep breath, and looks down at the sheaf of papers clutched in his hand. He was done. He was really _done_.

“I lived.” He breathes, to no one but himself, and has to duck his head just to conceal the smile that’s splitting his face. He wants to shout, to laugh, to throw off his uniform and melt into the crowd like he’d never been parted from it. He lived. He _lived_ , with a few new scars to show for it, but that all paled in comparison to the feeling sweeping over him in that moment. Stood stock still in the street like an idiot, like a rock parting the river of people, the midday sun beating down hard on his grinning face. For a moment he forgets all of it; the blood and the rage and the pain and the fear, and then-

Shelton, waiting for him somewhere in this big, chaotic city. It’s enough to snap Eugene back to reality, to get those nerves singing under his skin again as he takes a quick, covert glance around. All of sudden, Shelton’s vague, distant presence feels like a sonic bite of energy through the city; tangible, like if Eugene concentrated hard enough he could be led to him by presence alone. That same sixth sense that always told Eugene where Shelton was; the barest approximation of him through the pure darkness of a cloudy night, nothing but shadows on shadows. And now here, in Saigon, on that sullen blue precipice of Eugene’s own shadowed overpass, the streets take on a wholly different quality as the last time he had walked them. It’s the knowledge of Shelton’s heavy, drifting presence, the unbearable lightness of being discharged warring with the looming question of, _what next?_

Here he is, cut loose from the Marines and wobbling on a newborn’s legs through these semi-familiar cobbled streets. Free he may be but a free foreigner is still a foreigner, and so he keeps his head ducked as he hurries through the streets in search of a hotel with vacancies. 

The hotel is some hole in the wall, a sickly flickering neon sign above a door that opens out into a lobby so reminiscent of the whorehouse that he and Shelton had visited that it makes Eugene hesitate. That same black and white lino, a near-identical hard faced woman smoking behind the front counter, who takes him in from head to toe before charging him probably double the rate. He pays up, because hotels that take in the military are becoming increasingly few and far between, and he needs a bed for the night more than he needs his $20. 

Shelton had been right. 1969 is a whole new world; a changed world, and Eugene is suddenly unsure of his ability to take whatever has changed with it in his stride. He tips the woman behind the counter $5 out of misplaced guilt, which earns him a set of clean linens hefted into his arms before he’s led up two flights of stairs to his room. Eugene thanks her, trying to conceal how badly he’s sweating in the close, airless hallway from their trip up the steep, seemingly endless stairs, and she just hands him his keys before turning away.

The door sticks in the frame; Eugene braces his shoulder to it and it comes free, revealing a small, sparse little room beyond. A fan stirs the air, a little electric one propped by the bare double bed, and Eugene kicks the door shut behind him in his haste to stick his face in the fan’s brisk blast of cool air. He sighs, the noise buzzing into the fan’s blades, and swipes a hand through the steadily cooling sweat on his forehead. 

The realisation that he’s _alone_ dawns on him in increments. It’s a rather novel feeling, throwing off his sweat-stained shirt to bare himself to the thin stream of cool air from the fan and knowing that for once, he has no one’s eyes on him. He hasn’t been truly alone since he’d left the States, even if it felt the complete opposite sometimes, and the rush of odd joy that comes with the realisation has him grinning at nothing. The day seems so full of small, surprising joys. The freedom of standing amongst a crowd with no-one to tell him where he needs to be next. The feeling of having his own space, after months and months of sleeping and living amongst other men with barely the privacy to _shit_ in peace. A sweet little taste of what life will be like, once he ties up his last loose ends in Vietnam. Very deliberately, Eugene keeps his mind from his anxieties; ignoring his fears of a changed America, of Nixon’s America, in favour of self-indulgently unpacking all his belongings into the flimsy wardrobe casting a great shadow in the corner of the room. He makes up the bed; the deep orange bed sheets tucked sharply around in perfect hospital corners.

The illusion of normalcy is heady.

The bathroom is down the hall, shared with the others on the same floor but clean and tidy, as old as the fittings are. Eugene rinses away the sweat of the day from his face and neck, Shelton’s gifted dime clattering noisily against the porcelain as he bends over the sink. The fact that he had woken up at base camp that same morning feels absurd to him, now. Another lifetime ago. 

Eugene scratches wet fingers through his hair; gritty with dust and dirt. He wonders how Burgie is, wonders if he’s enjoying some peace and quiet, or whether he’s been sent out on a patrol already. The not-knowing nags at Eugene, sticking in his brain as he wanders back down the corridor to his room. 

Mind racing, he flops onto the creaky old bed. To him, used to breaking his back on the hard ground or trying to find a comfortable spot on a half-deflated air mattress, it’s nothing short of heaven. The bed, combined with the beating of the fan and the warm, diffuse light through the half-pulled blinds, has him near-dozing as exhaustion begins to catch him up. Eugene knows he’s far from the safety of his bed at home, but something about a locked door and a real mattress has him creeping closer and closer to letting his guard down.

_Nothing felt different, for her_ he remembers, dreamily, mind straying once more to Elizabeth, hesitating in the dismal blue of the pass. _It all stayed the same_. That shadowy fragment of himself on the ground back at base camp. Just because he had left doesn’t mean what lay on the other side didn’t follow. The thought shakes him loose, and he rolls onto his side to hook his seabag with his index finger, dragging it close enough so he can rummage through to the bottom of it. His fingers touch the slick rubber of his waterproof pouch, and he wrestles it free as he heaves himself up to sit cross legged on the bed. 

Eugene’s biggest fear is Shelton taking one look at him and realising everything that had happened between them was a product of the war. Admitting it to himself, even in the privacy of his own head, is difficult. But if that blue shadow of the pass is only an illusion, if Elizabeth stepped through the veil and came out the other side unchanged, wouldn’t it follow that Eugene and Shelton are just as unchanged? His fingers make quick work of flipping through the stack of unsent letters, setting them aside on the bedside table in favour of working his old, dogeared notebook free from the pile. He weighs it in his hand, that feeling like he’s toeing a precipice once more. The poor, discarded thing. He opens it to a random page, the once-wet pages crackling as he eases them apart. A huge, angry X. Nothing, that day. It’s not what he’s looking for; and his hands move almost beyond his control as he flicks through to November, to their so-called R&R in Saigon, to the first moment he had realised his feelings for Shelton. That kiss on the banks of the Saigon River. He skips back a couple pages. Shelton, blood red and head bowed in the looking glass puddle of gutter water. Crimson and clover, and the beer; the sticky bar under Eugene’s hands. 

That bird-like fluttering pulse. The downy slope of his nape.

Eugene supposes it’s fitting, to reconnect in the city that they had connected in. Dreamlike, he flexes the spine of his notebook until it lays flat on that excited rush of an entry. One of the last few honest entries he had made, before remembering became too much. He was afraid reading back on it would leave him alienated from the boy who had written it, but Eugene is pleasantly surprised by the warm little spark of recognition that rises within him as his eyes trace his words. He supposes it’s that his feelings for Shelton still ring as true as the day he’d scrawled this long, lovesick entry. It’s a huge comfort; one that has him steeling himself as he begins to flick forward through the book, past pages and pages of hastily slashed Xs until he fetches up on an unfamiliar block of handwriting.

He had almost read it a few days after being shot. Those strange, feverish days in which he’d began truly careening into his downswing that had stuck with him for weeks after. Those vulnerable nights and hot, exhausting days that all swam together so completely that he has a hard time looking back on it even now. Memories from then need threading from him, from the malleable block of time it had melted into. He can remember the impulse to read Shelton’s letter, though. That surfaces easily from the murk. Sitting in the dark with Burgie’s breathing and the damn noise of the jungle past the razed dirt perimeter. The want had been like something physical, but something had stopped him for some inexplicable reason.

Eugene thinks he understands why, finally. 

The fan stirs the air, that near-tinny little noise of its blades working hard against the humid air in the room. The same brutal summertime he had arrived in this damn country during. He’s sweating sitting still, hunched over his notebook with a thousand what-ifs streaming through his mind as his back aches at him to straighten up. He does; paces to the wardrobe and the small, neat stacks of all he owns in this world, and works his sweaty t-shirt off to pool haphazard on a shelf inside. The notebook seems to pulse with life in the dim room; Eugene flicks the shades up just to let some light in. Cracks the window, and the low roar of the street below fills the space. His nerves are jangling under his skin, amping higher and higher as he returns to his seat on the bed and finally lets his gaze drop to that mysterious, tempting little note. 

It begins, _Genie_ , and Eugene’s heart ratchets up higher and higher in his chest as he reads, until he finds himself at the final line with it resting snugly and pounding behind his uvula. He looks up, and catches his eye in the wardrobe mirror; the door still slightly ajar and slanted just right to bring him face to face with himself. He blinks, and his reflection in the long, age-spotted mirror blinks back. For one mad moment, he doesn’t recognise himself; sees only a shock of dark red hair over a white oval of indeterminate feature, and fear grips him. The note is swimming through his mind, like an ear worm with Shelton’s low drawl, and Eugene is so afraid that Shelton will see the change in him that he daren’t look away from his reflection until he sees something he recognises. The months have changed him inside and out, he’s sure of it. In his hand, the notebook crackles as he tightens his fist around it, watching as his features begin to bloom once more until his wan, drawn face is staring back at him; cheeks two spots of high colour from the heat, from the sudden panic. 

Eugene drops his gaze back to the note, unclenching his hand and smoothing the paper as flat as it goes as he reads. Again, slower this time. His heart is squeezing painfully in his throat just the same, and he feels all full up and near-itchy with it. With love. With a kind of settling peace that is as buoyant as it is calming. Eugene lets his anxieties become soothed by Shelton’s words; words more measured and more serious than Eugene can guiltily admit he had ever thought possible from Shelton. That fan whirrs steadily by his side, its cool air a welcome anchor to the room. 

_’It’s either living a painful life with you, or a painful life without’_ , he writes, that chicken scratch scrawl belying the impact of his words. Eugene can feel them crammed up in the space his throat-inhabiting heart had left. _’And I don’t know many things but I know which pain is gonna hurt the most outta the two of them.’_

Slow slow slow, Eugene’s hand snakes up to grasp onto his strung dime, fingers tangling with the worn leather cord as he folds his palm around it. Steadying, steadying. When he catches his eye in the mirror again, he sees only himself; tired, pale, and burning through with something in his eyes that he hasn’t seen in a very long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! 
> 
> if you follow me on tumblr you may have heard the good news: i've finished writing this fic! if you didn't know, i always prefer to complete a long fic before i start uploading it but couldn't wait with this one, so i've been writing it the whole time i've been uploading! always like 30k word ahead of my uploads, but it was always a stress that i'd catch myself up, haha. last week i mentioned that i was gonna skip the upload this week because i needed to do some writing, but i ended up actually finishing the fic over the weekend, so here i am with an update! we're still a good 30,000+ words from the end of the fic here, but it's very Personally exciting and relieving that i've got it finished and can now predict how many chapters will be left! i'm projecting maybe 5/6, depending on the word count of each chapter (which will be increasing!). so yeah, just thought i'd share that as the end has been in sight for a long time but now it's finally a static point! 
> 
> and one more thing to note, sledgefu week is a go! you can find the post explaining the rules and the prompts for the week right **[here](https://sledgefuweek.tumblr.com/post/183934288822/sledgefuweek-your-votes-have-been-counted-and-we)** if you'd like to participate :~) and it's not only for those with tumblrs! i have created a collection on ao3 that you can share your fic to if you prefer to upload straight to here, and we also have a submit button for those who may not have blogs but want their fics posted to the ship week blog!
> 
> anyway, find me on tumblr @ getmean, and follow the sledgefu week blog for updates!


	27. Chapter 27

Thundering rain; that biblical, tropical sheet of warm water from a slate grey sky. The noise seeps into Eugene's dreams, bringing with it that visceral smell of a rain-soaked jungle; dripping greenery and wet earth. Eugene comes awake all at once in that practised way he’s sure will take years to shake, and almost topples from the bed as he rolls on his side, unaware that during the night he’d gone from spreadeagled in the middle of the bed to lying rigid as a corpse on the very far end. That too, is a habit he imagines will take a time to break. It takes him a second to re-orient himself, to drag himself from that rainy jungle with the river brown and swollen around his chest, the ache of his arms as he holds his rifle above his head. He touches starch-stiff bed sheets, still warmed from his body. The little fan whirrs by his ear, white noise on white noise. 

With some effort, Eugene shakes the dregs of monsoon season from his sleep-blurred mind. Then he rubs at his eyes, and throws back the covers to greet the day.

Washing up in the shared bathroom is tedious; Eugene finds himself standing half-nude in the hall behind two fellow hotel-goers, all of them clutching their towels and their soap and their toothbrushes. It’s just like showering at camp, which is equal parts comforting and unnerving. The rain is pounding on the roof so hard above them that Eugene has to raise his voice to reply to a question he’s asked. Just his luck that the rainy season decides to start a month early to make sure he wouldn’t miss it. 

The window in the bathroom rattles with the force of the tropical storm, and Eugene scrubs quickly at himself in his haste to finish his shower before the window decides to give up the ghost. On arrival back to his room, he finds the roof leaking right on the carpet; soggy under his bare feet.

He sighs, and puts a glass under it to catch the water. The day is beginning to feel more and more ominous as it unfolds. 

It’s _the_ day. The big day. The crossroads to which his and Shelton’s months-ago diverted paths are about to converge upon. It takes Eugene almost an hour to dress; switching back and forth between the mere handful of civilian clothes he owns until he’s sweating, hair standing on end from static. His reflection looks crazed, and Eugene runs his clammy palm over his hair in a vain attempt to flatten it, to no effect.

“Be fucking cool.” He tells the mirror, tugging at the front of his shirt until he realises that it’s not buttoned right. “For once in your goddamn life,” He mutters, fumbling with the buttons until he gets frustrated and rips it off over his head. “Be _cool_.” 

His hair is sticking up worse than before. With a mounting sense of resignation growing inside him, Eugene tosses his shirt on the bed, reaching for one he’d abandoned earlier. Some small red polyester thing that Shelton had once said clashed badly with his hair but that he liked regardless. Eugene pulls it on, and turns from his reflection before he can scrutinise himself any further. The morning is running away from him; he laces his boots and takes the stairs two at a time until he’s stepping out into the hazily wet streets in search of breakfast.

The slice of blue sky overhead tells him all he needs to know about the current brief respite from the pouring rain. Eugene figures he has enough time to grab something to eat and to rush back to his hotel before he gets caught in it again. He quickens his pace, shoes splashing in the puddles pooling in the cobbled streets as he makes his way to the pastry shop he had spotted the day before. The air is heavy with that after-rain scent; the wet city a far cry from a wet jungle. That smell of dark, loamy earth, that scent of rained upon foliage that Eugene can only describe as _green_. Here, the rain-smell battles with the smells of the city, of diesel and wet concrete, of frying food and drains stinking of sulphur. But that heavy humidity of the previous day has dissipated, which is more than enough to give Eugene a little more energy. The damp air and the strange stillness that comes with a lull in a rain storm reminds Eugene of his early weeks in Vietnam, those strange, sad, sodden days in which he’d stumbled around on newborn legs, trying to make sense of the place.

Eugene supposes he’d never really stopped trying to make sense of Vietnam, but he cuts the thought loose to the street as he steps from the dampness outside into the warm clutches of the bakery. He feels that today of all days is not the time to let himself sink into that old, familiar place of rumination he would lose his head to in the past. Easier to sit around and navel gaze than connect to what’s happening beyond his own head.

Eugene buys two pastries out of force of habit, and eats both on his walk back, his sticky, sugary fingers leaving smears of confectioner’s sugar on his black pants as he wipes them off. The rain has begun again; just spitting, just threatening to tip the heavens down on his unprotected head. The air feels thick with it: that beat before a storm. Rain never fails to remind him of the first life he’d taken. Black blood into black soil, and Shelton’s face pale and looming from the dark wall of forest around them. 

‘ _Still wanna be salty?’_ His voice is a ghost in Eugene’s mind, blurred by time. He’s still not sure he knows the right answer.

————

The rain settles in for the afternoon, leaving Eugene free to rattle around his small room as the clock creeps ever nearer to their agreed upon time to meet. He changes his shirt again, a couple times, before ending up rumpled and pulling his boots on wearing the same shirt from that morning. He’s behind schedule - distracted by a last minute trip out in the rain to the corner shop, by his last minute change of clothes. He buys Vaseline, and condoms, because he doesn’t like to be presumptuous but he knows Shelton and he knows himself. Stashes them away in the bedside table before rubbing a towel through his wet hair in a vain attempt to look in some way put together. Shelton has seen him in far worse states, he knows, but the anxious energy running through him is forcing him away from being idle. And besides, he wants to show Shelton that he _can_ clean up. Their meeting feels so pivotal that Eugene wants to make sure not a single thing goes wrong; it needs to be perfect, because he’s had an ominous feeling about the day since he’d woken up to a leaky roof and he doesn’t want to tempt fate further. He wants to look good, he wants to look clean and well-kept and unflustered; all the things he never was when he and Shelton had had their time together last. It matters, for some reason, even though he knows Shelton will probably be wearing some ratty tee looking like he hasn’t been near a razor in days. 

Eventually he makes enough busy work for himself that he’s running late, and barely remembers to snatch his wallet from the side table before he’s racing down the stairs and out into the street, skidding on the wet lino on his way out as the woman behind the counter watches on. 

The rain is hammering down so hard that Eugene is soaked to the skin in seconds. He doesn’t pay it much mind; body moving almost on autopilot as his brain races ahead of him. To the bar, to Shelton’s face, how he’ll react when he sees Eugene again, whether he’ll embrace him, whether he’ll smell the same or look the same - Eugene can’t tear himself from his slipstream of nervous thought. He stalks quickly and nervously through the downpour, head ducked against the water as his mind jumps through dozens of made up situations. Ones in which Shelton stands him up, ones where he and Shelton realise they haven’t got anything between them now the war is past, ones in which Shelton clings onto him and never lets go. 

Eugene catches his reflection in a shop window, and it pulls him up short. A pulse of embarrassment goes through him at what he sees: his hair flat to his head with water, looking bedraggled and wet and completely unattractive. It’s almost enough to send him back in the direction of his hotel, to go nurse his stomach full of butterflies alone in his room. The mental image conjures up his memories of Shelton’s note, that carefully worded, achingly sweet note that Eugene had read just like that the day before: alone, and anxious, second thoughts burning a hole right through his skull. 

He thinks again of that precipice, that underpass, the unknown world that lay beyond it. Eugene knows that if he were to turn back now and be left with nothing but Shelton’s words, the memories of him that’ll fade, he’ll never stop cursing himself for it. His mind offers him that letter Shelton had written to him months ago, dated June 29th and full of impassioned anger and hope. Stonewall, that riot thousands of miles away that had shook Eugene at his core as though it had happened mere metres from him. _There’s hope for people like us_ , Shelton had written, and it was so unlike him to hang a shade on something like that that Eugene had taken notice, had filed it down for safekeeping in his mind. 

_Hope for people like us_ , Eugene thinks, gazing at his uncertain reflection in the shop window. Soaked to the skin, like a drenched rat. A wave of determination pulls him under, as sudden as the rainstorm that had him in its grasp. _Hope_ , his mind echoes at him, uprooting him from his spot in front of his bedraggled reflection. Appearance be damned. Shelton had taken time to feel _hope_ about something, about _them_ and their hazy future. It wasn’t something he could let slip through his fingers, like so many other things. He’d spent so much time and energy on worrying about their first meeting after so long being perfect that Eugene had let the real meaning of it run right past him. 

Shelton _wanting_ to see him again. Shelton staying in Saigon, for him. Just to make sure he could see him one last time. Waiting in Saigon with the knowledge that Eugene would be as changed as Shelton himself was changed, and not letting that stray him from the path he had set out for him. Eugene owed it to him to follow through on this mad, risky _date_ , just as he owed it to himself not to get in the way of his own happiness like he had done so many times in the past. He splashes through the puddles, socks soaking wet inside his boots as he keeps his chin ducked down against his chest, squinting against the steadily-lightning rain. Fear had fuelled his love life before the war. He owed it to himself not to let it rule him any longer.

It feels odd to enter a bar during daylight hours, even if the light’s just a product of it being the middle of summer. Not even the odd grey cast to the day makes Eugene feel any less insalubrious, ducking through the doorway into the dimly lit bar. It looks different in the daylight, that red neon light above the door not filling the street with its glow, but as soon as Eugene steps inside all his memories of that night come rushing back. It the _the_ bar, _their_ bar, and as fitting as anything. That sharp, hoppy smell of beer twined in amongst cigarette smoke and old wood varnish. Eugene feels transported as he scans the dim room, almost unable to believe that any time has passed at all since he had last set foot in the place. He’s been in quite the state of limbo for the past day and a half, and it looks like there’s no sign of that changing anytime soon.

It’s quieter since the last time Eugene had set foot in the place: the evening is just barely edging towards eight and so the noise in the bar is barely above a dull roar. The jukebox strains to be heard above it, cranking out some old, slow tune that Eugene doesn’t recognise. With so many things pulling on his senses, he’s having a hard time scanning the low-lit room for a familiar face. In a rush of gut-dropping fear, Eugene wonders if he’s here at all. If he’d gotten the same cold feet Eugene had, only he hadn’t gotten over it. He pauses in his idle wandering, stock still in the middle of the bar as his insides churn with that unpleasant thought.

The jukebox turns over, and in the lull that follows Eugene hears a hesitant, very familiar voice say, “Gene?” 

A new record clicks into place, and Eugene feels time slow as he turns towards the voice, that sticky, dreamlike quality to the air around him. Humidity, and pure shock, anticipation sending sparks of nerves in his stomach. Time melts into a taffy pull of motion; and The Ronettes croon away in the background as Eugene meets a very familiar pair of eyes across the smoky bar.

_Be my, be my baby,_ rising over the noise of the bar, and as soon as Eugene’s gaze lands on Shelton’s, his face transforms. That huge, toothy smile, blooming on Shelton’s face so dearly, so intimately, that Eugene can’t hold himself back. How could he?

He crosses the room in a few long strides, knowing his expression is mirroring Shelton’s just by the ache of his cheeks, the slight glaze of shocked, happy tears in his eyes. He doesn’t want to admit to his fear that Shelton wouldn’t have shown, not now, with him rising up out of his seat to greet Eugene, his eyes so bright in his face that Eugene wonders if he’s ever seen Shelton so happy.

“Shelton.” He murmurs, voice a rasp of emotion, barely carrying over the noise of the bar. He hesitates, hands gathered nervously at his chest as they do that unsure, distant dance of _will he, won’t he_ , before something wryly amused passes over Shelton’s expression, and he pulls Eugene into a bone crushing hug. “Is it really you?” He breathes, face pressed into Shelton’s neck, breathing him in. Cigarettes, clean sweat. The only thing that’s missing is the acrid tang of that damn mosquito spray.

Shelton laughs, low and amused in Eugene’s ear, and they separate. Shelton’s hands stay clutched on Eugene’s biceps, holding him at arms length as he glances him over. “‘Course it’s me.” He says, eyes finally finding Eugene’s again. He smiles, sharp, that impish expression on his face that Eugene had so missed. “Who else would be waitin’ ‘round in this godforsaken country for your sorry ass?” Eugene rolls his eyes at him, and scoffs, but doesn’t miss the affectionate squeeze Shelton gives him, still clutching his arms. “You look good.” He adds, quieter, and it takes every ounce of willpower in Eugene to not sway forward into Shelton’s body, suddenly brought over so lovesick by the tenderness in Shelton’s eyes. 

“So do you.” Eugene murmurs, and means it. Shelton’s face still has that high-cheekboned, feline quality, but he looks so much less _gaunt_ than he had when Eugene had seen him last. Less hungry. His eyes have lost that hunted quality they used to have: huge and pale and darting in his sun-browned face. There’s something _stiller_ about him; gone is that odd, frenetic energy that Eugene remembered well. Perhaps it was the drugs, or the watchfulness, or the sheer anxiety of it all, but whatever the stressor was, it seemed to be gone now. “Looks like you’ve been eating.” He adds, and Shelton’s mouth curls in a knowing smile. 

“You know I ain’t ever been able to resist sweets.” He says, and finally releases Eugene. 

They linger, still standing, like they don’t want to put the distance of the table between them; not ready to separate again even by the tiniest distance. Eugene can feel the want building behind his ribcage like a physical thing. Some outside force making him yearn across the half a foot of distance between them. He can’t fathom doing anything but holding Shelton close again, smelling his skin and his sweat and letting that speak for him instead. When Shelton murmurs, “C’mon, sit,” he goes, settling his elbows on the table and leaning forward for the illusion of closeness as Shelton does the same. 

“You crazy bastard.” Eugene murmurs, stretching his arm across the table to rest his thumb against Shelton’s elbow, just checking again that he’s real. Shelton grins from behind the hands he’s resting his chin on, gaze warm and fond on Eugene. He’s thrumming with excited, borderline-nervous energy; glowing from the inside out. 

“Lemme buy you a beer.” Is all he replies with, and doesn’t wait for Eugene to reply before he stands. Eugene watches him go, surefooted and lithe as he crosses the room to the bar. He’s wearing a white singlet that hangs loose on his small frame and offsets the deep brown of his skin, and Eugene finds he can’t tear his eyes away from him. The straight set of his shoulders and the sun discolouration scattering the tops of them; the unruly way his hair is curling from the humidity, from the rain. Seeing him there, leaning across with his elbows braced on the sticky surface of the bar to let his order be heard, feels more surreal than holding him did. Something about him _existing_ in this place, and being able to watch him exist, is throwing Eugene off. He wants to glance around and make sure he’s not the only one seeing him, that he isn’t going completely _batshit_ , but he’s helpless to the draw Shelton has. That magnetic pull that had tugged at him the afternoon before, the ghost of his presence always in the corner of Eugene’s mind. 

Shelton turns, pressing his cheek to his shoulder to look back at Eugene like he can hear his thoughts. Eugene lets himself be pinned by his gaze, struck through the heart by it, piercing even through the smoky room. He feels like a bug, spread out and pinned on display, every inch of him exposed; like Shelton can see right through to the viscera. He shifts, the delicate needle of Shelton’s attention stirring in his chest. It makes him shiver, and he feels like Shelton sees it. It’s there in the quirk of his mouth as he turns away, attention drawn by the bartender, and Eugene goes slack as the pin is pulled loose. 

He doesn’t want to admit he’s half-hard in his pants. He lets out a long, shaky breath, and fumbles for his cigarettes with numb hands, the shock of seeing Shelton still ebbing and flowing within him. 

“Here.” A bottle of beer slides into view, and a glance up from his book of matches finds Shelton leaning very closely over him. Eugene once again feels seconds away from being pulled under by the wave of attraction that crashes through him as he and Shelton lock eyes once more. 

“Thanks.” He murmurs, mind curiously blank as he takes the beer, and Shelton moves away to take his seat opposite. Eugene glances at the bottle, a smile pulling at his mouth as he realises it’s the same beer they had been drinking that night they had spent here, many months ago. He catches Shelton’s eye, and grins for real, holding the bottle aloft. “Still a favourite?” 

Shelton shrugs a shoulder, hiding his own smile behind the mouth of his beer as he takes a swig. “Beer is beer.” He mutters, and Eugene feels his face growing warm under Shelton’s heavy, unflinching gaze. “I missed you.” He says, finally, and Eugene takes the opportunity to duck his head in a vain attempt to hide the burning of his cheeks. Shelton sets his beer down with an air of finality, and leans forward over the table with something sly in his line of his mouth. “Cat got your tongue?”

Eugene glances back up, unlit cigarette and matchbook still clutched in his sweaty hand, forgotten in favour of getting pinned once more beneath that green-eyed gaze. “Don’t act an ass,” He says, and Shelton’s grin widens. “I missed you too.”

The clamour of the bar drops away as Shelton’s grin twists fond, his expression achingly tender as he props his chin on his hand. “Okay,” He murmurs, “No more foolin’ around then.” He drops his eyes to the tabletop, and taps his fingernail against the face of his Zippo once, twice. “Didn’t realise how good it’d feel to hear you say that.”

The rain pounding its tattoo on the roof, into the soft meat of Eugene’s brain, fills the quiet his words drop away into. It drowns out the jukebox, even, halfway through yet another love song that’s beginning to make Eugene feel distinctly misty eyed with the barrage of emotions currently coursing through him. He has to shift in his seat, lean closer to where Shelton is spread out, elbows on the table, just to be heard over the worsening rain. “How am I s’posed to believe you’re real?” He murmurs, head tipped just close enough to look suspicious, if anyone cared to glance their way. Eugene supposes Shelton chose this tiny corner booth for that very reason. Shelton inclines his head, listening, and Eugene adds, “Am I s’posed to believe you waited here in Vietnam just for me?”

He doesn’t know what’s making him bold. Whether it’s the weight of Shelton’s heady, intoxicating attention on him after so long, or their dimly lit little slice of the world all to themselves. The air, blue with smoke and just the vaguest veil behind which he feels free to creep his hand across the table, and run his thumb across Shelton’s knuckles. He looks lit from within, tawny skin glowing under the low, yellow light of the carriage lamps above their head; some odd fragment of Western culture in a place so far from home. 

“Did you read the note I left you?” Is all Shelton offers in way of explanation, and Eugene rears back a little, just far enough to be able to see Shelton’s expression. 

“Yes.” He says, and Shelton notices his unlit cigarette clutched between his fingers. Wordlessly, he slides that old talisman of a Zippo Eugene’s way. He lights up, and waits until Shelton does the same before asking, “Did you really mean it?”

Shelton’s eyebrows rise to his hairline. “‘Course I did.” He says, mangled around his cigarette. He plucks it from his mouth, and there’s something very earnest in his expression as he adds, “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

Eugene lets it wash over him, sitting back in his seat with a smile as he raises his own cigarette to his mouth. The light is catching Shelton just so, and he's handsome and smiling and bathed in the warm glow. Jesus, Eugene had missed him. He wants, he _wants_ , the same old want as before. Watching the nape of Shelton’s neck, the sweet whorl at the crown of his head, his curls yearning against the close crop of his hair. Eugene can conjure the image picture perfectly, and has been, so it feels doubly surreal to be this close to him. Close enough to touch, if he was allowed. Close enough to bury his fingers in those curls. 

Eugene’s hand twitches in his lap, upsetting ash onto his black pants. He wipes at it, and a smear of grey appears in his wake. Shelton’s gaze has him pinned again, a specimen under his lamplit gaze, like he knows it’s making heat rise in Eugene all the way up to his ears. “You’re staring.” He musters, and Shelton takes a long, languid mouthful of beer before he replies.

“So are you.” And he waits a beat before he adds, again, “You look good.”

Eugene snorts, and takes a pull on his bottle before setting it back down. “You said that before.” He mutters, and Shelton’s gaze softens as he laughs, and glances down at his hands, folded together on the table. Eugene feels so full up with so many emotions he isn’t sure what he wants to process first. The joy, perhaps. That he’s here and smiling across the table at _Shelton_ , who is smiling right back. Not seeing the war in the lines of his face, as Eugene had been so afraid of. Just seeing _him_ , only him, and Eugene seeing the same in Shelton. Gone is that hunted look in his eyes, gone is that eerie tension in every line of his body. If he didn’t know better, Eugene would say the war was behind him, but he can’t quite conjure up that much hope just yet. “Have you really been here all this time?” He asks, and Shelton’s gaze flicks away from him, attention drawn by the door opening. The smell of wet streets fills the room for a second, and then the door closes and it’s lost to the press of cigarette smoke.

“Unfortunately.” He says, eyes sliding back to Eugene, only after he’s watched the pair of soldiers walk to the bar. The corner of his mouth quirks, that old impish playfulness. “Still hasn’t quite grown on me, old Vietnam.”

His skin is so darkened by the sun that the scar under his eye stands out in sharp relief. Eugene wants to press his thumb to it, but rests his free hand on the sticky wood of the tabletop instead. “It feels like you ain’t ever been gone.” He says, bold, and Shelton’s sharp little smile softens. “Like I was just talkin’ to you yesterday.”

“Let’s pretend you were.” He says, and Eugene snorts, dropping his eyes to the tabletop. His cigarette is burning down unsmoked; forgotten in favour of eating Shelton up with his eyes. He takes a drag, and Shelton nudges the ashtray closer to him as he goes to reach for it. Their eyes connect; something deeply satisfied and affectionate in Shelton’s.

“Fuckin’ wish I could.” He says, dragging the conversation back onto its tracks. Shelton grins at him behind a veil of cigarette smoke as he takes a drag, and exhales. 

“Last few months ain’t been so kind?” 

Eugene raises his eyebrows, searching for the right way to reply. He finds he doesn’t want to shatter the atmosphere between them with too much honestly, and so he settles on, “Depends on what you’d call kind,” which makes Shelton beetle his brows at him.

“And what’s that s’posed to mean?” He asks, and doesn’t relent even when Eugene rolls his eyes at him. Like a dog with a bone, the same as ever. The thought is comforting, despite how irritating Shelton is when he’s like this. 

“It _means_ ,” he murmurs, leaning across the table a little as he locks eyes with Shelton. The din of the bar drops away again, the two of them wrapped up in their own little world once more. Shelton’s eyes drop to Eugene’s mouth, blatant, and Eugene can’t supress the little thrill of arousal the gesture gives rise to inside him. “I wanna hear about why you’re still kickin’ around in Saigon when you could be cosied up back in New Orleans with all the booze in the world, if that ain’t obvious.”

Shelton tilts his head to the side, letting the lamp above them catch his cheekbones just so. Coy, in his eyes, in the curl of his mouth, the way he holds his cigarette aloft, unsmoked. The smoke dances towards the ceiling, hypnotic. “What, I can’t play cute with you forever?” He asks, and Eugene scoffs.

“Dogging me about the past few months is you playin’ cute?” He asks, and Shelton just shrugs. “C’mon, humour me.”

Shelton doesn’t reply straight away. Eugene watches him take a mouthful of beer, eyes narrowed as he seems to size Eugene up. It makes him want to cover himself, to keep Shelton from looking at him too close, lest he see what was created in Vietnam and lies beneath the skin of his face. “Ain’t it obvious?” He asks, finally, and waits until Eugene raises his brows at him to continue, accent a heavy drawl as he murmurs, “For you, boo.”

The jukebox flips again, and over by the door a table of men erupts in a roar of laughter. Under the press of that noise, Eugene creeps his hand forward, and asks, “Did you really?” He feels his grasp on the conversation slipping; any attempt to keep it from washing up on the rocks of serious, earnest talk seems to be helpless. The idea of Shelton staying only for _him_ is almost too much. So close to that conversation they had had months ago, Shelton laid across Eugene’s lap, his sweet head tilted into his touch. The knowledge that Shelton would have stayed, for him. Would’ve served out another year of that hell just to give Eugene a fistful of months more with him. Not that Eugene allowed that, but Shelton had always been so adept at working his way around things to get what he wants. It’s too much to bear; the love, the devotion. Eugene hasn’t ever been loved like this before and doesn’t know what to do with it.

Very deliberately, Shelton reaches out to grind his cigarette into the ashtray. A curl of smoke escapes, clinging to his fingers as it gives up the ghost. “Are you gonna keep askin’ me that?” He asks, glancing up at Eugene under his lashes. “Since when did you stop trustin’ what I tell you?”

_Did I ever?_ is Gene’s knee-jerk reaction, followed by a guilt that feels misplaced. When he tries to look back on his feelings before Christmas, before even last week, he finds them curiously shrouded in a thick fog. He can’t remember, but doesn’t know how to tell Shelton that. “I dunno.” He settles on, and takes a drag from his cigarette, shrugs. “’S been a while. Am I wrong for thinkin’ some things might be a bit different?”

Shelton drains his beer. “Am I wrong for thinkin’ they weren’t?”

“Answer my question.” Eugene murmurs, feeling all full up to his eyeballs with that helpless love. Shelton’s brows raise, and Eugene adds, “Please.” Gentle, quiet, almost lost under the din of the bar and the rain beyond it. He can see the exact moment that Shelton relents; his teasing little smile drops, and his eyes lower to the beer bottle he’s fiddling with, scratching at the label on the front. Curls of shredded, sticky paper already litter the table in front of him, and Eugene watches him tear off a long strip before he replies.

“I really stayed here for you.” He says, as another curl of paper joins the pile. “I dunno how else to say it to make you believe me.” He glances up, expression serious for the first time that night. Something about it settles Eugene; the knowledge that he’s not teasing. “Didn’t feel right, leavin’ here without you.” He shrugs, and his eyes drop once more. _Shy_ , Eugene thinks. Shy to be sitting across from Eugene and talking to him so earnestly. Easier to flirt and keep it light, he supposes, than to acknowledge all that lies between them. “Knowin’ I was here an’ you was here made me feel less lonely, less far from home.”

Eugene finishes his beer in the time it takes for Shelton to get it all out. Always slow with his words; measured with the things that meant so little to him but mattered so much in the grand scheme of things. He didn’t spare them lightly, so it meant a lot that he would try at all. Eugene touches his thumb to the back of Shelton’s hand, just grazing his knuckles. “Wish you’d told me sooner.” He says. “Woulda felt good to know you were here too.”

“Didn’t know how to tell ya.” Shelton mutters, eyes still downcast. His boot bumps up against Eugene’s under the table. “Knew it’d make you mad.”

Eugene laughs, and just like that the tension is broken. Shelton glances up, a sheepish smile playing around his lips. All Eugene wants to do is take his face in his hands; to touch him, to make sure he’s _real_. “Well I weren’t _mad_.” He says, voice thick with amused affection. “Too goddamn stunned to be mad.”

Shelton chuckles, eyes on his beer bottle. “My brothers always said I knew how to pull a stunt.”

The topic is abandoned, for now, even if Eugene wants to pick it apart until it bleeds. Wants to know exactly what was going through Shelton’s mind when he didn’t get on that flight home. Or what he’s been doing with himself all this time; what’s been on his mind, and what’s been filling his days. The time to discover all that is later, and Eugene sets his curiosity aside in favour of simply enjoying Shelton’s company after such a long time apart. Two beers turns into four, which turns into an eye-watering shot of whiskey each not long after. It feels half celebration and half first date, and Eugene finds himself enjoying himself far more in his new freedom than he ever has before. He feels pink-cheeked and silly, leaning halfway across the table to watch Shelton’s lips move as he talks, their knees bumping together under the table. 

More and more, Eugene can feel himself start returning. He thinks he hasn’t felt so much like _himself_ , in a very long time. 

“And how’s Burgie,” Shelton asks, the whiskey spreading his grin sloppy across his handsome face. “The old bastard.”

Eugene slides his boot between Shelton’s, heart thumping at the small thrill of that simple, covert touch. “Keepin’ on, last I saw. Fuckin’ tired of the whole lot of ‘em.” The other officers, he means, and knows Shelton will understand without having to expand. 

“And Jay?” Shelton presses, and there’s an edge of false nonchalance to his voice that sends a tiny dart of pity through Eugene.

“You know you can write ‘em.” He says, and Shelton rolls his eyes, cutting his gaze away. The bar has been steadily filling up since Eugene had arrived, dripping wet and undoubtedly wild around the eyes. Now, it’s full and noisy, the room blue with smoke and stuffed to the rafters with raucous noise. Eugene himself is dried off, cradled along into drunkenness in the warmth of the room. He can feel his hair sticking up in great big cowlicks from his drenching and hasty drying, but fancies that Shelton rather enjoys the look on him. He hasn’t been able to drag his eyes from Eugene for more than a few minutes at a time, and Eugene can feel that same draw in himself. Looking anywhere but at Shelton is a waste of time: he has nigh on six months of missing him to make up for, and plans to cram in as much as possible into this one night. The bar feels near pocket dimension; the two of them existing easily in the womb of it. He isn’t sure how they’ll fare when the night ends, and the not-knowing nags at him. “Lemme get the next round.” He offers, and surely enough, Shelton’s eyes settle back on him. That invisible magnetic field between them.

Shelton grins, cat that got the cream. “About fuckin’ time. Spending damn near all my money tryin’ to impress you.”

“You tryin’ to get me drunk?” Eugene asks, leaning forward over the table. Shelton’s smile turns wicked, eyes dropping to Eugene’s mouth once more.

“Who, me?” He asks, mock-coy, and the alcohol is making his accent heavier; that drawl is molasses thick and very deliberate as he drops a hand beneath the table. Under the cover of the crowded bar, of their complete anonymity and the dim little corner they had sequestered themselves into, his fingers find Eugene’s knee, shoved between his own. “Is it working?”

Eugene shifts, drawing his knee back from Shelton’s touch as he stands, unable to keep hidden the smile tugging at his lips at the faux-injured expression on Shelton’s face. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” He asks, and can feel Shelton’s eyes burning twin holes into the back of his head as he turns away, through the press of people until he fetches up at the bar. The thrill of the chase is heady. It feels like they’re right back at the beginning again; that heavy, tangible attraction between them even more concentrated, now. Like they’d never kissed, never fucked. Never held each other and whispered secrets into the black void of the nighttime jungle. Eugene feels distinctly teenage with how he’s been nursing a low, steady burn of arousal through the night, sparked up by Shelton’s gaze, by the white singlet that falls away from his chest _just so_ , by how completely daring and intoxicating it feels to flirt so openly after so many months apart. The clock feels set back to zero, and the anticipation of where the night is going to take them muddles pleasantly with the pure joy that they’ve fallen back into step with each other like no time has passed at all. 

He gets two more shots of whiskey with the beers, because tonight feels distinctly like some sort of celebration, and he’s having more fun than he’s had in a very long time.

In the corner, Shelton is all lit up from the warm, diffuse light of the lamp above like something unreal. Too shining and solid for a place like this, some dive bar in Saigon full of testosterone and cheap beer. Neon lights and buckled wood floors, the humidity so high in the room that Shelton’s curls are crazy; the close crop of his hair doing nothing to keep him looking tidy. The light glances off his teeth as he grins, spotting Eugene juggling their beers and their shots, and half-stands to take them before Eugene drops it all. Their fingers brush, and Shelton takes the opportunity to slide his thumb over the back of Eugene’s hand, up and up to the jut of bone at his wrist.

Their eyes meet, and Shelton’s are very dark through the dim room, burning a low blaze. His fingers curl very deliberately around Eugene’s wrist. “What?” Eugene murmurs through numb lips. The corner of Shelton’s mouth lifts, and his eyelids flicker down to where he’s gripping Eugene.

“I wanna kiss you.” He says, and squeezes Eugene’s wrist before he releases him. His gaze slides away, out across the bar as his hand reaches on reflex for his shot of whiskey. Eugene finds himself struck dumb, that ache of want running through him like a live wire. When Shelton glances back, there’s something melancholy in the twist of his mouth. 

Impulsively, Eugene sets the beers down and slides into the same booth as Shelton, crowding close in one quick movement. “Drink up.” He says, a little brusque, but the sad look on Shelton’s face has disappeared; replaced by the a kind of surprised amusement that tells Eugene he’s acting out of character. He feels bold, buoyed by the alcohol, and warm to the very tips of his toes.

They clink their shot glasses, and Eugene watches Shelton throw his back for the pure pleasure of being able to just _look_ at him up close. The bob of his adam’s apple, and his wince as he sets the glass down, sucking in air between his teeth at the burn of the whiskey. He has one eye closed, and cracks the other open in mock-disbelief as he sees Eugene didn’t drink at the same time as him.

“Betrayal!”

“You’ll live.” Eugene deadpans, and knocks his drink back in one neat movement. When he resurfaces, Shelton is grinning, close and familiar, his body radiating warmth against Eugene’s side. His glass joins Shelton’s, clattering into it as he stacks them, the noise lost to the roar of the bar. Someone cranks the jukebox, and the voices rise higher to be heard above it. Under it all, Eugene leans in, close enough to smell cologne on Shelton’s skin. “I’m going to the bathroom.” He murmurs, anticipation coalescing into a low throb between his legs. He’s thankful for the dimmed lights covering up the worst of his flush; equal parts alcohol and desire. Shelton’s eyebrows raise. “And I think, in five minutes, you’ll need to go too.”

Shelton’s brows climb. His answering grin is wicked. “You don’t say?” Eugene doesn’t know what’s come over him. He nods, and Shelton’s teeth sink into his full lower lip. “Well, that ain’t very much like you, boo.” 

Eugene doesn’t let the sting of that statement sink as far as it could do. Instead he dips his hand under the table, and squeezes at Shelton’s thigh, knowing his sly little smirk is mirrored on his own face. “Maybe you don’t know what I’m like.” He murmurs, and Shelton snorts, visibly delighted by this turn of events. 

“Okay,” Shelton says, eyes bright and bloodshot. He looks sweet, and boyish, curls sticking up and the apples of his cheeks just flushed beyond his summer dark skin. Excited, drunk. He can’t bite back his smile, and it only widens as Eugene pulls his hand away and stands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!!!! hope you ENJOYED THE REUNION!


	28. Chapter 28

Just like earlier, Eugene can feel Shelton’s eyes boring holes into the back of his head as he slips through the crowd, making a beeline for the bathrooms at the back of the bar. A narrow corridor connects the back of the building to the main room, and it’s quieter, darker, a blessed modicum cooler as Eugene paces past closed doors, eyes scanning for the bathrooms. A flickering bulb illuminates the hall, and Eugene has never willingly put himself in such a seedy position before, but finds he’s enjoying it more than he thought. He’s not sure what he has planned, but it’s daring and exciting and hitting that new reckless little streak that has risen in him since June. Shelton, dark doe eyes and those boyish curls, the shape of his thighs in his tight pants and that mesmerising little singlet. Eugene can’t get him out of his head. The want is physical, now. 

He finds the bathroom, lit greenish by the fluorescent, and Eugene makes a beeline for the sinks. The old, scratched mirror hanging over them offers him his white-faced reflection, lit sickly in the unforgiving light. Dark eyes peering out of a pale face, cheeks two bright splotches of drunken flush, his hair a mess from dying untidily inside the warmth of the bar. Eugene drags his hands down his face just to watch his skin stretch, and then leans over the sink to splash cold water on his overheated skin.

His face is his own, even with the alcohol thrumming through him. His own, and he blinks at himself, upsetting water from his lashes to run down his cheeks like tears. The dime just hiding in the shadowy dip of his shirt swings forward as he leans forward to turn the faucets off, gripping them like anchors to the world. It winks in the low light, the dull metal only just catching it. His failed good luck charm. The talisman of Shelton’s love for him.

Eugene counts to eighty-five, and then the bathroom door slams open, and Shelton is grinning and unsteady on his feet as he crosses the room to crowd Eugene back against the sinks. 

“You do this with all the boys?” He asks, voice rough and teasing as he ducks his head to press his nose to Eugene’s throat. His hands slip to Eugene’s waist, and he makes a low, pleased noise in the back of his throat as Eugene’s hands finally settle into his hair. “Fuck, you still smell the same.”

“What do I smell like?” Eugene asks, one hand gripping the sink as the other tilts Shelton’s head back, his curls soft between his fingers. Shelton goes willingly, eyes slipped almost all the way shut as his pleased, lazy smile grows. 

“You,” He murmurs. “Sweat, soap. Salt.” He grins, showing all his teeth. The flower, and the serpent under it. Eugene’s fingers tighten in his hair, the love that’s washing over him almost too much to bear.

“Kiss me.” He says, and watches Shelton’s tongue dart out to wet his lips. The danger of their position is as thrilling as it is terrifying; pressed up against each other hip to chest, Shelton sagged against Eugene’s front with his hair in Eugene’s fist and his fingers just pushing down the back of Eugene’s pants. All this, and they haven’t kissed once. Eugene can feel Shelton hard against him, and can feel his own body giving over to the thrum of arousal that’s been building in him since Shelton had first spread him out and pinned him up with his gaze.

Shelton’s eyes are on Eugene’s mouth. “I’m scared to.” He breathes, seemingly hypnotised by Eugene’s lips. Eugene drops his hand to the nape of Shelton’s neck, pressing his thumb over the ridge of bone behind his ear. 

“Why?”

If he concentrates, he can just hear the echo of his voice bouncing off the tiled walls of the bathroom. _Why, why, why_ -

The rain has stopped. Eugene can’t help but to pin meaning to that.

“I’m scared it won’t be as good as I remember.” Shelton says, and Eugene doesn’t know how to deal with the honesty that always seems to come to Shelton so easily. It’s one of those traits of his that _feels_ like it should be uncharacteristic if Eugene didn’t know better. 

“I s’pose the only way to find out is to try.” He replies, voice pitched low enough that the watchful walls don’t parrot his words back at him. Shelton snorts at that, and uses his grip on Eugene to pull him ever closer. “Look,” He adds, and unsticks his free hand from the cool porcelain of the sink. When he settles his hand up and under the thin material of Shelton’s singlet, against the curve of his waist, he shivers; Eugene’s hand cold on his hot skin. “’S simple.”

Shelton goes easily, swaying into Eugene’s chest as he coaxes him nearer, the hand on his nape holding him steady as Eugene ducks down to close that tantalising, final gap between them. Their noses bump, and Shelton sucks in an anticipatory little gasp of air, and then they’re together as though they had never been torn apart. Eugene’s thumb inches into that little hollow behind Shelton’s ear, heart surging in his chest as he kisses him; soft, and tender, gentler than they’re used to but just right for how Shelton is clinging to him. Hands fisted in the front of Eugene’s shirt, the one he’d liked so much, as Eugene pulls him closer into the line of his body and kisses him until he’s making small, pleased noises in the back of his throat. His hands tighten in Eugene’s shirt, and then release, sliding up in a long, slow press of his palms to Eugene’s skin. He feels goosepimples rise in Shelton’s wake, and he can’t suppress the shiver that runs through him as Shelton anchors his fingers into Eugene’s hair. 

Their kiss deepens, and Eugene revels in the noises being tugged from Shelton. Small, helpless noises, catching hard in his throat like they’re being torn from deep down inside him. It’s been so long since Eugene has had him like this that he can’t quite keep his thoughts straight; he can feel himself succumbing to that odd, atom-deep state that Shelton always brought out in him. No thoughts beyond, _closer, deeper, kiss me, kiss him_ ; animalistic in their complete simplicity. It’s heaven, to be so far from the anxious, cerebral rush of thought his mind usually housed.

_Salt. Sweat. Soap,_ he thinks, clutching harder at the bony jut of Shelton’s hip, pulling him into where Eugene is hard and aching for him. To be known is the scariest thing of all. He’s sure he would know Shelton in darkness; he _knows_ he would. The magnetic, wordless pull of his body. The smell of him, the smell of his sweat when he’s scared, or when he’s been lugging a pack ten miles with no break, or when he’s flopped halfway across Eugene’s chest with his cum drying sticky on his stomach. The last image is too visceral; Eugene makes a low, helpless noise against the hot, desperate press of Shelton’s mouth, knotting his fingers in his curls, in that barest slip of fabric he calls clothing.

“Fuck.” Shelton gasps out, crushed and muffled against Eugene’s mouth as his hair is tugged on. His fingers scrabble at Eugene’s face, sinking hard into his jaw as he pulls on him. Ten points of desperate, clinging pressure. Eugene bites at Shelton’s lip just to hear him moan.

“Still scared?” He breathes, tugging Shelton’s head back to break their kiss. The way he has Eugene pinned against the sink gives him no other option, plus Eugene decides he likes the way Shelton reacts to it. That little bit of pain. His mouth dropping open on a silent noise of pleasure, eyes half-slitted and glazed. Eugene’s lips feel full and tender from his kisses.

“Not exactly.” Shelton quips, still able to smirk with his cock pressed hard and insistent into Eugene’s hip. He wiggles close again, and Eugene drops his hand in favour of curling them both around the lip of the sink Shelton has him pressed up against. His mouth finds Eugene’s pulse; hot breath over his skin. Dimly, he realises he’s sweating. “I missed that.”

“Yeah?”

A kiss, pressed surprisingly gentle to the hollow of Eugene’s throat, and then the slick dart of his tongue. Eugene tilts his head back to give him more access, the slide of his teeth to the column of Eugene’s throat sending sparks of arousal through him. He isn’t sure how he’s gone so long without Shelton’s touch, without his heavy affection. The way he looks at Eugene and makes the whole world drop away. It’s that same quality that had narrowed the world right down to their pinprick of land beside the river they had kissed for the very first time. The very same quality that is making this bathroom feel very much the same. The crown of Eugene’s head thunks against the mirror as Shelton nips at his Adam’s apple, and they both laugh at the noise.

“Yeah,” He says, resurfacing, lips dragging up to Eugene’s mouth to capture him in a kiss once again. Just for the hell of it, just because he could. Eugene lets himself be kissed, heart so full up and big in his throat that he’s not sure words would be able to make it past anyway. The fluorescent flickers above them, and when Shelton pulls back, all Eugene can wonder is how he looks so handsome in the sickly yellow-green light of it. When Eugene brings his hand up to cup Shelton’s face, he leans into the touch, covering Eugene’s hand with his own. “Just wanted you so bad I got scared that it wouldn’t be the same,” His eyes flick over Eugene’s face, searching. Pupils blown so wide they’re black in the low light. “Afraid I’d made it all up or somethin’.”

“And does it?” Eugene asks. “Did you?”

Shelton snorts, something affectionate and brightly amused playing in his expression. “Not so far.” He says, and the walls echo it back. His hand drops from Eugene’s to settle on his waist, and Shelton squeezes, once. “You feel pretty real to me.”

Eugene kisses him again, thumb stroking up and over the high rise of Shelton’s cheekbone. “I missed it too.” He murmurs, fingers tightening on the sink behind him as Shelton very deliberately rolls his hips up against Eugene’s. There’s an impish smirk playing around his mouth, eyes big and bright in his face, following Eugene’s every move. “Missed you so bad I felt like I’d dreamed you up, sometimes.”

“I’m real.” Shelton murmurs, just an edge of something wickedly amused in his tone. His fingers are very warm through Eugene’s shirt, and with a jolt Eugene realises his hand is resting over his bullet wound. The shock that he doesn’t mind is less than the shock of realising that for once, even for such a short period of time, he’d _forgotten_ about it. Shelton must see it on his face, because his brows furrow, inquisitive. “Everything okay?” He asks, and Eugene sags against him, all the tension leeching from his muscles. Shelton’s hands tighten at Eugene’s waist, something very warm and tender in his expression as he watches Eugene closely. “Genie?”

Eugene doesn’t know how he can’t feel the scar. His shirt is thin, and the scar is like something malignant on his side. A thick worm of scar tissue, resting peacefully under Shelton’s hand. “Let’s get out of here.” He says, cupping Shelton’s sweet, stubbly face in his hands. Shelton lights up, smile morphing into something silly and wide, bubbling over. 

“Yeah?”

Eugene nods, fervently, and Shelton pulls him forward into a crushing kiss; he nips at Eugene’s mouth, and makes a small, pleased noise against his lips as Eugene’s hand skates up the back of his singlet. Bare, warm skin, the knobbly bumps of Shelton’s spine. He wants to see him spread out under him. Wants it properly, in a real bed like the first time, and with the whole night to waste.

For the first time in a long time, Eugene finds he wants someone to see him. To know him. Every inch of him, every iteration of him. Fragmented and changed and hurt by the months passed but more ready that he’s ever been.

They tumble into the street, half clinging onto each other as Shelton stumbles on the cobbles. The street is awash with light, now, the night having dropped dark around them as they had drank and caught up inside. The warm flood of yellow light from open bars, the gaudy flashing neon reflecting double in the puddles in the street. The whole city shines, slick from the rain, all the colours of an oil spill. Everything glows under neon. When Eugene glances to his side, Shelton is all lit up in it, that familiar red glow from the sign above the door just touching the side of his face, the very ends of his curls. 

“What?” He asks, teeth flashing red in the flood of neon through the black night. It feels so surreal to see him in this light that Eugene can’t stop staring. He’s been dreaming about and replaying his moment over and over in his head since it’d happened, since Shelton had left and all he had had was his memories. This red-lit little moment in time, the catalyst for an avalanche of events that all coalesced into the most formative year of Eugene’s life. The words he wants lie just out of reach.

The rain has stopped. Eugene takes in a lungful of fresh, wet city air; those smells of rain and garbage and the distant, organic smell of the river. It feels charged with something, something electric and out of his control. The cicadas are screaming, that old familiar sound of summer. Sometimes, Vietnam and Mobile blur so close together that it’s disorientating. Shelton’s fingers touch his wrist, drawing him back down to earth, and when Eugene looks back at him he’s smiling, eyes fond on Eugene.

“Where’d you go to?” He asks, standing whole and handsome in that dream-like red neon light. The devil, all light up in shades of red and smiling so tenderly that Eugene knows he’d hand his soul over in a heartbeat if he asked. Dreamily, slowly, his hand finds the nape of Shelton’s neck, fingers settling up comfortably in the hollow behind his ear. He can feel him swallow, and his pulse rabbits away under the tips of Eugene’s fingers. 

Another snapshot; that sunny day in January when he thought Shelton was leaving his life for good. Eyes on the nape of his neck as he had swung himself into the dark body of the Huey, before he was gone from sight. Eugene thinks of the burning of that village just weeks before, the sight of embers spiralling high into the bright blue sky as the wood shifted and groaned before them. Weren’t forests burned to help the soil, to give the next generation of trees a better place to grow? Was his and Shelton’s journey much different? Whatever had been burned in that village with Shelton’s admittance of his time left in country was unfurling now, some five hundred miles away and too many days to count. Brand new and full of hope. Eugene can feel it in his chest; newborn and tender.

“Do you know I love you?” He asks, helplessly, heart thudding so loud he feels that Shelton _must_ be able to hear it. He hopes he can. 

The expression of wonderment that passes over Shelton’s face is staggering, humbling. Eugene has never been looked at like that, before. Like he’s just watched somebody’s world shift and settle onto a new axis; and the axis is himself. Skinny, awkward, redheaded him. He cuts his eyes to the ground, to the dark, rain-wet concrete beneath their feet. It’s almost too much to bear. 

“Why’d you tell me that someplace I can’t kiss you?” Shelton murmurs, eyes flitting over Eugene’s face, searching. For what, Eugene doesn’t know, but he must find it; his fingers find Eugene’s wrist once more, and he squeezes, light. “You with me?” He asks, with a smile that’s so tender and out of character that Eugene finds he can’t look away. He’s struck dumb with emotion, words struggling to erupt from below the ball of it clogging his throat fast.

“Do you know?” Eugene croaks, and Shelton’s eyes crinkle as his smile widens. Eugene wants to draw him closer by the hand on his nape, and knows Shelton wants the same. He can see it in him; the same want that Eugene has been bowled over with since the moment he had laid eyes on him again.

“I know.” Shelton says, and tightens his fingers on Eugene’s wrist, tugging him from where he’s rooted to the spot with shock over his own admittance. “C’mon, Genie.” He tugs again, and Eugene moves, helpless to do anything but follow him. Their shoes kick up water from the damp ground as they start towards the direction of Eugene’s hotel, and Eugene counts forty steps before Shelton turns, and says, “I love you too.”

One foot in front of the other. Eugene concentrates hard on that, eyes glued to the neon-slick ground as he processes Shelton’s words. The beer curling through his bloodstream is nothing compared to the giddy, bubbling emotion threatening to overspill in his chest. He grins, and Shelton must catch it because he laughs, that short sharp bark of amusement that Eugene had so missed. When he glances to the side, Shelton’s grinning too, hands stuffed in his pockets as they stroll, and it’s huge, toothy, pure cat that got the cream. Their eyes meet, and Shelton snorts, and ducks his head. 

“I didn’t even know I’d been waitin’ on that.” Eugene murmurs, and then he cracks up, and Shelton joins in, giddy excitement so tangible between them as they bump up against each other; unsteady on drunken feet. Eugene stays close; the idea of even a centimetre of distance between him and Shelton laughable. He wants to exist like this forever; truly untethered in this place where nobody knows his face, or knows his name, pressed up shoulder to shoulder with the most frustrating, unpredictable, incredible man he’s ever known. “You’re somethin’ else, you know?” He adds, words failing him, and hopes by Shelton’s answering grin that he understands what Eugene is trying to say.

The lady at the front desk barely spares them a second glance as they stumble into the lobby; drunken and shushing each other as they climb the narrow, steep flight of stairs together. They keep stopping every other step to kiss; unable to keep their hands off each other in the relative privacy of the shadowy stairwell. The hollow of Shelton’s throat shines with sweat under the low lighting, and Eugene can’t hold back the impulse to kiss him there, to taste his sweat. Shelton’s fingers hook into the belt loops at the back of Eugene’s pants as he makes a small, vulnerable noise at the touch, and they stay there even as they break apart, keeping him trailing close as they reach Eugene’s floor and he fumbles for his key. 

“You ever think how we’ve never been really alone?” Shelton murmurs, fetching up against the doorframe as Eugene jiggles the key in the lock, his eyes unerring and heavy on Eugene’s profile. Shelton tips his head back against the frame, fingers tracing over it as his eyes wander down the hall. “You ever think about that?”

The lock turns, and Eugene braces his shoulder to the door and it comes loose. The shadowy room beyond beckons them forward into its clutch, but Eugene finds himself hesitating on the threshold, even after Shelton has slipped by him, lithe little ghost he is. 

“I think about it a lot.” He replies, watching dreamily as Shelton passes through the dark room, only the slice of light from the open door to lead his way. The bedside lamp comes on under his touch, flaring a dim yellow as it casts the room in its glow. 

“I always wondered what would happen once we got a little privacy.” Shelton murmurs, and the smile he shoots Eugene is all teeth as he glances up and sees him frozen in the doorway. “C’mon, boo. You’re lettin’ the cold out.”

Mechanically, Eugene moves forward, eyes locked on Shelton; just a slip of a man in the soft touch of the lamp. Impish, gorgeous, barely there. Eugene feels like if he touched him, his hand would pass right through. “What did you think would happen?” He asks, and the door closes behind him with a definitive click. A second later, he flips the lock, and Shelton’s grin grows. 

“Why don’t you come over here and find out?” He murmurs, voice so quiet it’s almost lost under the whirr of the fan. He touches his fingertips to the headboard of the bed, and Eugene follows the line of his arm, the long wiry muscles and those odd, slender wrists. 

Eugene crosses the room, helpless but to obey.

“I missed you so much.” He murmurs, because it bears repeating, because it’s the only thought on his mind as he steps into the circle of Shelton’s arms. He holds him close, tight, like the embrace he’d given Eugene before he’d stepped away from him before those long, hard months that followed. Eugene clutches at the back of his singlet, knuckles skating over smooth, warm flesh as he bunches his fingers in the fabric. 

They don’t move for a long, dragging moment. Too wrapped up in each other and in the privacy and silence of the hotel room. Their real first greeting, after so much time apart. The bar barely counted, with the noise and the anxiety and all the eyes on them. A practise run for this, the real event. Shelton makes a small, vulnerable noise in the back of his throat, and turns his face into Eugene’s neck. The press of his lips follow. Eugene wants to swallow him whole.

“Kiss me.” Shelton murmurs, and Eugene uncurls his hand from the tiny, tempting slip of cloth he’s wearing to clutch gentle into his curls. Longer than when Eugene had last saw him, and curling wild from the rain, from their illicit kissing in those seedy bathrooms. He kisses him, because they’ve never been alone like this with all the night stretching out endless and full of promise ahead of them. Because he’d never learned to say no to Shelton and thinks he never will. Never wants to, if it means Shelton will love him like this forever. Small and wiry against his chest, his mouth open on a moan as Eugene fingers slip from his back to his waist, pulling him hard into the line of his body. 

“What do you want?” Eugene murmurs, pressing his nose to Shelton’s temple as his fingers creep under the waistband of his pants. Loose, black slacks; high and sleek on the narrow dip of his waist. Eugene wants to peel him out of them, wants to nip at the skin underneath, leave marks for all the time he couldn’t. 

Shelton snorts, hands coming up to twist in Eugene’s hair as he surrenders himself to the press of Eugene’s hands on his body. Their foreheads touch, so close that when Eugene opens his eyes Shelton is an out of focus blur. A wraith of lamplit copper skin and burning green eyes. “You.” He murmurs, simply, voice dropping richly satisfied as Eugene skates his hand down lower and grabs at the swell of his ass through those maddening pants, and adds, “Just you, everywhere.”

Eugene kisses him again, just for the hell of it. Just because he’s close and gorgeous and so much like Eugene remembers. The smell of him, thicker now with his arousal, with the sweat that’s springing up on their skin in the close, warm room. It’s _perfect_ , better than he could have ever imagined, and so he kisses him until Shelton is smiling and soft against him, just so he can feel his hands clutching hard in Eugene’s hair. He feels anchored, for once. Rooted right into the cigarette-burned orange carpet under their feet; fully, finally himself.

“I feel so good when I’m with you.” He murmurs, gripping tight at Shelton’s hips as the other man pushes on his chest, a teasing smile on his face as Eugene takes a step back, and then another, until the back of his knees hit the bed. One more light push to his sternum has him sitting; hands coming up on reflex to gather Shelton close to him, to mouth at the skin between his nipples as he pulls his singlet over his head. His ribs stand out in sharp relief as he lifts his arms, and he shivers when Eugene’s hands skate up over them, a smirk still pulling at his mouth.

“What kinda good?” He asks, one hand burying itself once more into Eugene’s hair to guide him lazily to his nipple. Eugene bites at it, his tongue soothing over it a moment later as Shelton hums in pleasure. 

“Every kinda good you can think.” Eugene murmurs, and his hands dig hard into Shelton’s tight little waist as he parts his legs and drags him ever closer. “What d’you want?” He asks again, and Shelton tugs Eugene’s head away from his chest with a pull of his hair, sliding that silver pin of his gaze right through the soft meat of his brain once more.

“Is it weird we’re falling into bed so soon?” He asks, fingers loosening in in Eugene’s hair until he’s just cupping the back of his head, thumb stroking sweetly there. “Should we wait?”

“No.” Eugene murmurs, tucking his fingertips into the waistband of Shelton’s pants just to hold him. “No, it ain’t like it’s the first time.” He leans forward to press his brow to Shelton’s chest, and closes his eyes as Shelton’s arms circle his head, holding him close. “I want you. I’ve been wanting you.”

The whirring of the fan fills the beat of silence that follows, and then Shelton is ducking his head to press a kiss to the crown of Eugene’s head, and murmuring, “I don’t wanna wait anymore.” Eugene grins, tipping his head back until that green gaze can lance him again, chin settled against Shelton’s sternum as they sway together, cosy in the low, orange light. 

“Then don’t.” He breathes, grinning into the kiss that Shelton pulls his face up for; desperate and hungry and just the right side of too hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! are so close to the end :~) next chapter will be madly long, but for now enjoy the build up! i'm very happy to change the 28/? to a very solid and decisive 28/30 (isn't it nice to end on a round number?). two chapters to go!


	29. Chapter 29

It’s easy, the push and pull between them. Practised, the way they fit together as Shelton settles in to straddle Eugene’s lap, the two of them half-sprawled across each other as Eugene reaches back to ease Shelton’s boots from his feet. His fingers skate over the jut of bone that is his ankle, curling at his heel as Shelton laughs, and presses his thumb between Eugene’s lips just to watch him take it. His other boot hits the floor with a thump, and Shelton straightens up, kneeling over Eugene until his knees are on either side of his chest. Eugene surrenders to it, the subtle power play as Shelton’s hand comes to cup the back of his head, the other making short work of the fly on his pants. The high, sharp waist pulls away, revealing coarse dark stomach hair, dipping down down into where the zipper meets fabric. Eugene can’t help the surge of arousal that has him pressing his face into Shelton’s stomach, feeling the muscles there jump as Shelton laughs again, and tugs on his hair. 

“Baby,” He murmurs, his face half thrown in shadow as he tilts Eugene’s face up to look at him. “D’you know what I want?” He asks, and Eugene settles himself back on his elbows, unable to bite back the grin on his face.

“I think I do.” He replies, and Shelton inclines his head, and there’s that push-pull again; Shelton’s hips tilting towards Eugene, his hand dipping into his pants to pull his cock out, and Eugene’s lips finding the head of it before he can ask again. He sucks him slow and easy, angled just so with Shelton straddling his chest that it’s nothing to take him down deeper, far enough into his mouth to feel him nudge at his throat, and Shelton’s fingers tighten imperceptibly in the chunk of Eugene’s hair he’s gripped onto for dear life.

“Fuck.” He breathes, voice dipped so low it drips like honey through the slow silence of the room. Eugene flicks his gaze up to watch him; the soft, full pout of his mouth open on a moan as Eugene pulls back to suck at him again, and then takes him down deeper just as quick. 

He’s missed having Shelton like this. Missed the subtle power plays of their relationship, when they come together like they are now. Missed the taste of Shelton, the weight of him on his tongue and the way he sounds when Eugene sucks him off real dirty, fingers of one hand digging hard into the meat of his ass as he pulls him even closer into the heat of his throat. It reminds him of the last time they had had together; Shelton’s cock in his throat and the hard ground beneath his knees. Eugene decides he likes Shelton better, like this. Over him, a heavy, settling weight on his ribcage, with the light catching him from behind just so. Expression half-shadowed, half thrown into sharp relief, the perfect arch of his plump top lip and the way his brows pull down as if pained. Judging by the taste of salt in Eugene’s mouth, and by the hard velvet thickness of him, it’s not pain, or perhaps it’s so good it borders right on it. That razor’s edge, like Eugene has been teetering all day.

“Fuck my face.” He gasps, when Shelton pulls back to give him some space, some air. He presses the back of his hand to his eyes, and smears the tears there. Shelton is grinning at him like a lunatic, and he presses the head of his cock to Eugene’s cheek, to his lips. Flushed and hard and slick from Eugene’s mouth; he doesn’t want anything but Shelton inside him, over him, all around him. Maybe Shelton can sense that desperation in him, as his grin turns wicked and he doesn’t waste another moment before he’s pressing back into Eugene’s mouth. He opens up willingly for him, eyes fluttering shut as fresh tears spring into his eyes at the slow, insistent press of Shelton’s cock into his throat. 

Shelton’s hand leaves his hair, and for a moment Eugene is lost without it, and then he reconnects; thumb sliding along the stretched out edge of Eugene’s lips as he makes a small noise of satisfaction. “Easy.” He murmurs, and Eugene goes limp. His shoulders drop, chest dipping inward as the breath leaves his lungs and he relaxes into Shelton’s touch. “Good.” Shelton says, and Eugene glows under the praise, just as Shelton begins the slow slide of pulling his cock from Eugene’s mouth.

He almost grasps at him, eyes dropping open as if he could wordlessly beg Shelton to stay in his mouth, but before Eugene can do anything, Shelton is driving forward into him again, and Eugene goes limp once more with the thrill of it. He’s never had a taste for this kind of rough treatment before Shelton, but there’s something dirty and illicit in it that lights a fire right in the pit of his stomach. Something that has him achingly hard in his pants despite not being touched once. He likes the weight of Shelton on his chest, the overwhelming press of him inside him. Eugene’s never been one to get fucked but he supposes that if it’s like this then he could be convinced to give it a go. He feels all full up of him, breathless with love and with the short, slow little thrusts Shelton is making into his mouth, moans tumbling from his lips like he couldn’t hold them back even if he wanted to. He doesn’t even realise that he’s getting lightheaded until Shelton pulls his cock from Eugene’s mouth and replaces it with his tongue; kissing him hard and desperate until Eugene responds; clutching at his shoulders as he lets Shelton bruise his mouth even more.

“You’re fuckin’ filthy.” Shelton pants, something wickedly amused in his tone as he presses his thumb to the split slick swell of Eugene’s bottom lip. He grins, and Eugene can’t help mirroring it, finally collapsing back into the bedsheets with a laugh as he throws his hands over his face. His lips feel bruised, and swollen, his throat used in the best kind of way.

“ _You_ are.” He croaks, and Shelton flops down next to him, his grin curving his eyes upwards as he rolls over to cup Eugene’s face in his hands.

“I weren’t the one begging to get my face fucked.” He says, simply, and kisses each of Eugene’s burning red cheeks as he squeezes him affectionately. “Jesus, I fuckin’ missed you.” He says, though the sentiment is long exhausted. All the same, Eugene lets it light him up inside, that sweet reassurance of emotions reciprocated. 

Eugene kisses him back, because he couldn’t conjure good enough words if he tried. Because they’ve always understood each other best in the things which _aren’t_ spoken out loud. Because he wants nothing more than this; Shelton’s mouth on his own, his hands making short work of the buttons on Eugene's shirt before he’s rolling on top of him and pushing his slick, hard cock against Eugene’s stomach. 

“I liked that shirt on you.” He murmurs, hands sinking into the mattress on either side of Eugene’s head as he dips down for a kiss. “Who says redheads can’t wear red?”

“That’s what you said last time.” Eugene says, laughter in his voice as he curves his fingers over Shelton’s hips, pushing them underneath the waist of his pants. 

Shelton snorts, his nose pressed to Eugene’s temple as he kisses clumsily at his ear. “I’m a broken record,” He huffs, and rocks forward into the slight give of Eugene’s stomach. “Brain like a sieve.”

“’S the pills.” Eugene says, pulling Shelton closer as he laughs, the sound trailing off into a half-moan as Eugene grabs at his ass, encouraging him into rutting slow and deliberate against Eugene’s stomach. “You like that?” He asks, and Shelton presses his forehead to Eugene’s, his face a twist of pleasure. 

“I’m startin’ to think you got some kinda motive,” He says, and kisses Eugene before he sits back and gets to work on Eugene’s own fly. “Tryna make me cum too quick or somethin’.”

“Me?” Eugene asks, feigning innocence even as he eats Shelton up with his eyes. “Never.” He looks gorgeous in the low light, bare chested and brown skinned, his cock jutting wet and dark from the fly of those tempting pants. Eugene wishes he’d climb back over him and fuck his throat again, but knows Shelton well enough to see the switch in him as he pulls Eugene’s cock from his pants; that little light of desire in his eyes that tells Eugene that this whole thing being about _him_ is over for the time being. His hand curves comfortably around the thick weight of Eugene’s cock, and his eyes flutter shut as though he’s the one being touched as he presses his thumb to the head, already wet with pre and sensitive enough to have Eugene biting at his lower lip. He settles back, head resting on his hands as he watches Shelton figure out just what he wants to do with him. 

“Y’know, I spent months daydreamin’ about this moment.” He says, and Eugene snorts, hips tipping lazily up into Shelton’s touch as he chases his pleasure. He’s so hard he’s aching, desperate for it after Shelton had so thoroughly taken what he had needed from Eugene, and he seems to realise it; spitting on his palm before returning to tugging Eugene off slow. “Spent months on it but now I’m here I’m just,” He shakes his head, those clever fingers of his settling Eugene down into a haze of pleasure as he touches him. “Too much pressure.”

“We got all the time in the world now to try shit out.” Eugene mumbles, pressing the side of his face into his bicep as he closes his eyes on the feeling of Shelton’s hand squeezing at the head of his cock. “Fuck, that’s good.” He breathes, and then, “Tell me what you were daydreamin’ about while I was out there gettin’ shot at.”

Shelton laughs, the sound low and smoky through the heavy air. His hand stills on Eugene’s cock as he shifts; settling a knee between Eugene’s legs so he can half drape himself over Eugene’s front, his hips coming to press up against Eugene’s thigh as he squeezes at his cock. “When I say I thought about everythin’.” He murmurs, and they laugh, Eugene’s hands coming to settle comfortably into Shelton’s overgrown curls as he rocks his hips up into Shelton’s touch. “Mm. A lot.” He noses at the side of Eugene’s neck; a kiss follows, then the nip of his teeth. “Getting fucked. Your fingers, your cock.” Eugene squeezes at his nape with the pulse of arousal his words send through him, sparking right to his cock, squeezed between their bodies and growing harder and harder in Shelton’s grip. “Wanted to get fucked everywhere, all ‘round my room, in the bathroom, the shower. Wanted to fuck your throat with your fingers inside me.” He huffs out a laugh, and Eugene is helpless to do nothing but moan with the images he’s conjuring. The knowledge that Shelton thinks about him like this; it’s overwhelming.

“What else?” He manages to gasp, words half-catching in his used up throat. Shelton leans back a little from him, putting enough room between them so he can watch Eugene react under his touch, enough room so he can pump Eugene’s cock as freely as he wants. A smirk is playing around his lips; eyes dark and huge in his face.

“Fucking you.” He murmurs, and Eugene throws a hand over his face just to hide his expression as he feels a wave of arousal wash over him. Shelton laughs. “Yeah, doing you as good as you do me.” He shrugs one shoulder, hand still working slow over Eugene’s cock as he drops his gaze. “Other stuff, too. Mostly all that though.”

“You were busy.” Eugene murmurs, feeling slightly lightheaded from the hot, humid air, from Shelton’s hawklike attention turned on him. He thinks of Shelton’s big, broad hands on his thighs, pushing his legs back and filling him up like he’s never had before. He has to bite his tongue to hold back on the moan that the image tears from him. Shelton’s grin sharpens, turns hungry and huge. 

“You like that?” He asks, hand stilling on Eugene’s cock as he leans forward, settling his hands on either side of Eugene’s head again as he grins down at him. “Havin’ me in your ass?” Eugene can feel himself going red, and he slaps a hand over his face just as he pushes at Shelton; a hand to his bare chest until he retreats a little, laughing. “Don’t be shy.”

“I’ve never done it.” Eugene mutters, and Shelton’s mouth drops open as he laughs; a delighted kind of surprise on his face. “I know, I know.”

“That’s so _butch_ of you.” Shelton teases, moving so he’s no longer straddling Eugene. He stands, pulling his pants off as Eugene watches. “You ain’t ever been curious?”

Eugene props himself up on his elbow, half-distracted by the sight of Shelton in front of him; nude and bronzed and glowing in the dim light. It occurs to him that he hasn’t seen Shelton fully naked like this since their afternoon spent together in Saigon, half a year ago; and finds himself unable to tear his gaze away. “I dunno,” He murmurs, mind replaying that mad, uncharacteristic thought that had popped into his brain when Shelton’s cock had been in his throat. “Not really.”

Shelton shrugs a shoulder, and tosses his pants to the floor before climbing back onto the bed to make short work of Eugene's own. “No sweat.” He murmurs, hands sliding up and over Eugene’s bare thighs and hips as he ducks his face into Eugene’s stomach. He hums, happily, and his expression is slightly punch drunk when he resurfaces. “You wanna try it?”

Eugene hesitates, chin on his chest as he watches Shelton nip at his stomach. “No.” He says finally, and Shelton rests his cheek to Eugene’s hip to gaze up at him. “Next time, maybe.”

“Okay,” Shelton says, and a grin hitches itself back onto his face. Eugene can’t help but smile back; that old infectious grin of his. “Fuck me then.”

“Can I?” Eugene asks, and groans when Shelton nods, eyes bright and alive in his face. Slow, he reaches down to bury a hand in Shelton’s hair, heart softening in his chest when Shelton’s eyes drop shut as he leans into the touch. “Is that what you want?”

“More than anything.” Shelton purrs, eyes heavy-lidded as he opens them to pin Eugene with that low, dark gaze of his. “Been needin’ it ever since you fucked me the first time.”

“Okay,” Eugene murmurs, slow. “So show me.”

He barely props himself up as Shelton detaches from his side, sliding off the bed to fall to his knees, a soft thump in the thick pile carpet under him. Eugene grins, and shuffles a little closer to the bed, supporting himself on one elbow to watch Shelton ease his boots off, face lost in sweet concentration as he tackles Eugene’s double-knotted laces. His underwear follows, to join his shirt on the ground, and Shelton’s eyes close as he nuzzles his face into Eugene’s lap, a smile tugging at his lips even as he kisses at the hard length of him.

When he takes him in his mouth, Eugene closes his eyes, tilts his head back with a moan at the feeling of him. Shelton goes slow, goes easy, as if Eugene doesn’t know what his smart mouth is capable of, and it feels so good and he feels so close to him that Eugene has to throw a hand over his face as he collapses back into the covers. A hum of satisfaction from Shelton, and then Eugene’s legs are being nudged further apart as Shelton settles; his big, broad hand gripping at the meat of Eugene’s thigh as the other comes to circle his cock, pumping him as Shelton sucks at the head of it. When Eugene cracks open his eyes, Shelton’s burn through the dim room; preternatural and huge in his face as he watches Eugene gasp on air, fingers clutching at nothing, at the bedsheets, in his own hair as he takes him down deeper, such an air of amused smugness to him at Eugene’s reaction that it’s tangible even though his mouth is so otherwise occupied. 

“You _bastard_.” Eugene breathes, a grin on his face as he tips his head back against the sheets, eyes on the water-stained ceiling as he chews the inside of his lip ragged to keep himself quiet. As if in answer, Shelton swallows him down deeper; his hand coming to clutch at Eugene’s other thigh as he pulls him closer, taking him into his throat with that ease that Eugene has missed. He throws his hands over his head, clutching at the sheets and closing his eyes at the feeling of Shelton’s mouth on him again. 

It becomes too much too fast, and he’s tugging at Shelton’s hair before either of them really want to stop, hissing at the feeling of Shelton’s tongue on the head of his cock as he pulls away from him, something impish and playful in his eyes, in the curve of his spit-slick mouth. He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, and Eugene shudders as he watches him; shivers from the top of his head right down to his toes, overcome with arousal and want and pure desperate affection for him. Kneeled there nude without a care in the world, handsome and tousled and boyish, a smile stretching his mouth giddy as he shifts, the desk lamp picking out every long, lean muscle in his body as he settles back into Eugene’s lap. 

“Hey.” He croaks, and Eugene pushes his thumb to that full pout of his top lip until Shelton opens his mouth and tests the tip of his thumb with his teeth, eyes alive and playful in his face. 

“Hey yourself.” Eugene murmurs, and pulls away, re-settles his hands on Shelton’s narrow hips as Shelton braces his hands to Eugene’s chest. They regard each other in silence for a moment; Eugene’s eyes flicking over Shelton’s face as a smile begins to bloom on it under his scrutiny. 

“What?” Shelton asks, touching his face as though he’d find something there. Eugene bats his hand away, replacing it with his own. He squeezes the fat of Shelton’s cheek playfully.

“Nothin’.” He murmurs, filing this moment away in his memories. Eugene’s chest feels so full of love and affection he’s sure it could burst any second. The fan whirs behind them, tousling Shelton’s curls as he leans forward to kiss Eugene, his hands two points of pressure as he leans his weight on Eugene’s chest. “Are you gonna ride me?” Eugene asks, as Shelton leans away, and he grins, that loud, sharp bark of a laugh pulled out of him by Eugene’s abrupt answer. _Ha!_ Eugene only ever heard it when Shelton was truly happy.

“You got rubbers?” Shelton asks, wiggling his butt back on Eugene’s lap as his smile grows, and turns sharp. Predatory. Like that hawk-like look he’d get in his eyes on patrol. “Lube?”

“Bedside table.” Eugene murmurs, and Shelton scrambles, his heel catching Eugene in the side as he lunges across the bed with a huff. “Ouch!”

Shelton whistles, resurfacing from his near-upside down position with his hair wild, a strip of rubbers and the Vaseline in his hands. “Were you a boy scout, Genie?”

Eugene snorts, re-seating himself up against the headboard before reaching for Shelton, who settles himself back into Eugene’s lap readily. “Sometimes my church group would take us camping.” He says, and Shelton raises his eyebrows, expression teasing. The Vaseline gets tossed to the side, cold against Eugene’s thigh, in favour of Shelton winding his arms around Eugene’s neck. His cock, still hard, presses insistent against Eugene’s stomach.

“Hot.” He says, playful, and winks when Eugene rolls his eyes at him. “C’mere.”

Shelton kisses him; soft and slow, easing them down into the moment, into that easy push and pull that they’re back to perfecting after their time apart. Eugene squeezes Shelton’s ass, coaxing him into rolling his hips into Eugene; nice and steady and firm, his cock hard between them as he arches into Eugene’s chest, fingers splayed on his jaw, holding him in place. 

Shelton breaks away, eyes searching on Eugene’s face as he clutches at him; thumb passing over his lips as though committing every piece of him to memory. “Please.” He murmurs, only the barest trace of that teasing, flirtatious creature from before in his expression. He’s wide eyed and rumpled, sweet and pliant as Eugene coaxes him up onto his knees until Eugene’s face is level with his chest. He kisses him, right on his bony sternum, and Shelton sinks his hands into Eugene’s hair with a sigh as he puts his mouth over his nipple. Eugene grazes his teeth over it just for how it makes Shelton shiver, and slips his hand over Shelton’s ass, tugging once at his own cock just to feel it before dipping his hand in the pot of Vaseline open at his side. He doesn’t miss the smirk that pulls at Shelton’s mouth, and snorts quietly as his hands tighten in Eugene’s hair at the first touch of his fingers at his asshole. “Fuck,” He breathes, as Eugene pushes inside him, “You feel so good.”

Eugene, overwhelmed with love, wraps his other arm around Shelton’s waist and pulls him tight to his front. He can feel him hard against his chest, cock leaking wet as Eugene works his ass with his fingers, equal parts getting him ready for what’s to come and fucking him just to have him clutch at Eugene’s head, to hear him moan and curse and have him rocking back into Eugene’s touch almost as soon as he gets used to the wet slide of him. It’s worlds away from their first time together; the first and last time they’d been able to have each other like this. Eugene hadn’t even been aware of how bad he had been missing it, until now. The closeness. The open trust and love radiating off of Shelton; bouncing back off his own in an endless feedback loop. He can’t imagine doing this with anybody else, can’t imagine even _wanting_ to. This time it’s different; better in such a subtle way Eugene can barely put words to it but knows it has everything to do with their time together, their time apart. It’s reunion and homecoming and the cumulation of their journey together all at once. Eugene clutches hard at Shelton to keep him still as he re-wets his fingers, driving them back into him with a single-mindedness that keeps Shelton panting into his hair, his hands wrenched away to grip hard at the headboard. Dimly, Eugene realises he’s sweating, only because he can taste the salt of Shelton’s sweat from how he’s kissing and biting at the shining skin of his throat.

“If you don’t fuck me,” Shelton grits out, rocking himself back on Eugene’s fingers _hard_ , eyes dark and doe-like in his sweaty, handsome face. “I’m gonna cum on your fingers.” He grips at his cock, hard and wetting Eugene’s sternum with how wet the fingering has him. Eugene grins at him, feeling distinctly wolflike as he eases his fingers inside once more just to watch Shelton shudder from the sensation. 

“What if I don’t think you’re ready for it yet?” He murmurs, fucking Shelton slow, now. Deliberate as he passes over that spot inside him that makes him leak even more on Eugene’s chest, shutting his eyes as his mouth drops open on a silent moan. “What about that?”

“You ain’t that fuckin’ big.” Shelton manages, still managing to snark despite his head rolling on his neck with pleasure, with Eugene knuckle deep inside him. Eugene laughs, watching in delight as the corner of Shelton’s mouth quirks upwards with a snort.

“Fine.” He says, pulling his fingers from Shelton’s body before dropping his hand to curve around his cock. Shelton makes a little noise at the movement, rolling his shoulders as he re-settles himself in Eugene’s lap; his hard little cock bumping up against Eugene’s stomach as he presses up against him. “Hand me a rubber.” Eugene murmurs, and there’s a fumble; his slick fingers useless as he grapples with the condom, before Shelton rolls his eyes and takes it from him. 

“”S a good fuckin’ thing we ain’t payin’ by the hour no more.” He mutters, a trace of amusement in his eyes as he flicks his gaze from the newly opened to rubber to Eugene’s face. “Ain’t it?”

“Nothin’ wrong with takin’ it slow.” 

“We can take it slow with you in my ass.” Shelton quips, and when he smiles it’s wolfish; hungry. “So go on.”

Eugene kisses him again, because the fond affection in his chest is almost too much to bear. Shelton grins into the kiss, his hands sliding home in Eugene’s hair once again as he lets Eugene shift him; a hand on his ass as the other one guides his cock into where Shelton is hot and tight and wanting. He takes it slow, easing Shelton down on his cock as he breaks their kiss to press his forehead to Eugene’s shoulder, a low moan pulled from him as Eugene fills him up. His fingers tighten in Eugene’s hair; tighter and tighter until he makes a small, pleased noise, and presses his nose to Eugene’s jaw.

“You feel so good.” He murmurs, voice low and accent thick when he finally finds his voice again. Eugene tips his head back against the headboard; eyes on the ceiling as he resists the urge to begin fucking up into Shelton as soon as he’s fully seated inside of him; Shelton’s ass flush to his lap as he rocks his hips experimentally, feeling every inch of Eugene hard and aching inside of him. “Fuck.” He breathes, fingers drawing through Eugene’s sweaty hair at the nape of his neck, and all Eugene can do is moan; too overcome by the feeling of Shelton all around him again. His heart is thudding in his chest so hard that all he can do is clutch Shelton close and kiss him; the two of them sweating in the close, midnight air. 

“Missed you.” Eugene babbles, “Missed this, Shelton. Merriell.” He smoothes his hands through Shelton’s curls, fingers tugging on tangles as he moves them down to cup his face. Shelton’s eyes are heavy lidded, expression dreamy as he tilts his head into Eugene’s touch, gaze never leaving his face. Eugene can imagine the steel-cold slide of that pin through his guts; sticking him fast to the bed so Shelton can fuck him exactly how he likes him. The thought shouldn’t turn him on as bad as it does. 

“I could get used to this.” Shelton mumbles, bracing his hand on Eugene’s shoulder as he grinds on his cock; short, slow little movements that have Eugene gritting his teeth against the impulse to pin Shelton flat and fuck him as hard as he knows he wants. His hands clutch against Shelton’s bony hips, both urging him on and acting as an anchor as Eugene lets himself get swept up in the feel of Shelton around him. “Havin’ you under me.” Shelton continues, tone vague and faraway. When Eugene looks, Shelton’s eyes are shut, his brow crumpled in what could be extreme concentration if it wasn’t for the sultry, pleasured pout of his open mouth as his hand slips to Eugene’s chest; pinning him to the headboard as he picks up the pace. 

They settle into an easy rhythm; Shelton’s hands gripping at the slick skin of Eugene’s shoulders, his throat, his chest, as he works himself open on Eugene’s cock. Setting the pace, his face contorted in pleasure as Eugene watches him, unable to tear his eyes away. It’s so different, having him like this. Closer to the near-voyeuristic way Eugene had watched him milk his cock dry that stormy November morning so long ago. Like that, but ten times more intense; his tight little waist in Eugene’s grip, the clutch of his body and the way his hard cock is steadily leaking pre against the hair on Eugene’s stomach. Being able to grip him and taste him and feel him is nearly more than Eugene can handle.

“You’re so gorgeous.” Eugene murmurs, so overcome with the tight feeling of love in his chest that his voice comes out thin, and hushed. He clutches at Shelton’s waist, pressing his forehead to his sweaty chest as Shelton’s hands slide into his hair, anchoring him there in an embrace. They don’t slow their pace; just holding onto each other as Shelton grinds in his lap; short, choppy movements that Eugene finds himself fucking up into, unable to stop himself. The angle must be right, because Shelton’s fingers clutch tighter in Eugene’s hair as he makes a noise like he’s been struck; and Eugene fucks him into him again, and again, until Shelton’s head is lolling on his neck and he’s bouncing in Eugene’s lap. And he can feel it, that spring winding tighter and tighter in his stomach; so close to the edge but holding back because the noises that Shelton is making are too good to cut short. His cock is hard between them, wet and flushed, and he goes to touch himself but Eugene catches his wrist, pulls it away. “On your stomach.” He says, and Shelton’s eyes are glazed, heavy lidded when he turns his attention on him. There’s a flash of amusement in the lazy curl of his mouth, and he rocks forward just once more because he can, smirk growing when Eugene moans. 

“You gonna fuck me hard?” He drawls, dragging his hand through Eugene’s sweaty hair as he grinds down on his cock; slowly, absently, just to feel Eugene hard and throbbing inside of him. He grips Eugene’s chin. “Gonna get me off?”

“If you’d get on your stomach.” Eugene murmurs, grinning to take the sting from his words as he pinches Shelton’s ass. “Or are you not gonna listen to me?”

Shelton hums, and settles back into the slow, dragging pace they had started with; free hand braced on the headboard, the other still gripping Eugene’s chin, forcing that heavy, heated eye contact. Eugene lets himself get swallowed up by it, by his big, lamplit eyes, by the maddening sensuality of his every move. “I’m pretty comfortable here.” He replies, rolling his hips as if to punctuate it. Eugene’s breath catches in his chest at the slow, hot slide of him around his cock. He feels hypnotised, White Rabbit in the headlights of Shelton’s green gaze. The floor creaks loudly in the hall outside, and neither of them move or even glance that way. Eugene isn’t sure he could if he tried. 

“Get on your front.” He says, again, a hard steel line running under his words. He doesn’t know where he conjured the tone from; as surprised as Shelton seems to be, his eyebrow cocking as he _grins_. He pats at Eugene’s cheek, teasing, delight rolling off him in waves as he reaches down to squeeze at his cock; small and fat and flushed against Eugene’s stomach.

“So it’s like that?” He purrs. Eugene can practically see him biting his tongue, unsuccessfully holding back his grin. “Okay, fine.”

They shift; Shelton settling onto his knees and grabbing for a pillow to tuck under his chin before glancing back over his shoulder, that same expression of arousal caught up in the true amusement on his face. Eugene presses his hand to his back, right between his shoulder blades, and barely has to use any pressure before Shelton is surrendering to it, eyes dark as he lets Eugene push him down. “Like that.” Eugene murmurs, and Shelton’s eyelids dip, slow, catlike. He’s heavy precious bronze by the lamplight, all Eugene’s, and he pushes back into Shelton in one smooth movement, no teasing, no holding back. It’s worth it to see Shelton’s expression change, just the half of his face that Eugene can see between pillow and arm and mattress. His hair a mess from the rain, from the humidity, from Eugene’s fingers knotting it up and sending it wild around his face. 

His expression twists; that tug of pure pleasure to the point of pain. Just like always. Eugene pushes his knee up with a hand to the back of his thigh, and settles into this new rhythm, finally controlling the pace. That sharp coiled spring of pleasure in his stomach tightening with every thrust.

Shelton’s mouth opens on ragged little gasps every time Eugene grinds his hips forward into him, muffled into the pillow, just on the edge of overstimulated. It isn’t the fast, hard fucking like it had been when Shelton was riding him; just a slow, deep, intense slide that’s leaving Eugene breathing hard, his head rolling on his shoulders with the feeling. It’s heady, intoxicating, and they’re pressed together so close Eugene can feel every shudder of Shelton’s body, his hitching moans and involuntary gasps as Eugene grinds his cock into his prostate, over and over. They’re both sweating for real, now; both of them covered in a light sheen of it as Eugene works them both closer and closer to the edge. He can tell Shelton is almost there; it’s in the way he’s clutching at the bedsheets, at the pillow under his chin. The way he tightens up around Eugene’s cock with every slow, deep slide of him inside. 

“Shelton,” He murmurs. “Merriell.” That odd, unfamiliar name. Shelton doesn’t have to be told; he reads the command slipped into the way Eugene groans his name, and unclenches his fingers of one hand from the bedsheets, shifts so that he can work his hand under himself and clutch at his cock. Eugene doesn’t have to look to know how hard he is; he can tell in the way Shelton’s face drops on a silent, breathless moment of pleasure, his hand twisting on his cock just as Eugene grinds hard into his ass.

“ _Fuck_.” He breathes, cheek pressed to his shoulder as he works his cock, brows drawn down in a tight, pained expression of pleasure as Eugene keeps that same steady pace going. Slow, deep, hitting just where Shelton needs him. And Eugene is so close that he’s biting his cheek raw with how hard it is to hold back now that coiling spring is twisting sharp in his guts. But he holds himself back, right on that razor sharp threshold, until he can begin to feel Shelton shuddering underneath him; coming apart with a low, long moan as his hips twitch forward. Eugene watches him, heart swelling huge and lovesick in his chest from the sheer intimacy of seeing Shelton like this; vulnerable, pink-cheeked, eyes screwed shut against the pleasure washing over him as Eugene slows his pace. He fucks Shelton through his orgasm until he goes limp, eyes at half-mast as he watches Eugene follow him over the edge a moment later. There’s a lazy sort of affection in his eyes when Eugene presses his chest to Shelton’s sweaty back; he tucks his face into Shelton’s neck, screwing up his eyes as Shelton kisses clumsily at his ear. 

They stay together like that for what seems like an age; tangled together in the sheets as they try and catch their breath, sweat sticking their bodies together. Shelton’s hand comes back to pat awkwardly at Eugene’s shoulder, and he takes the hint, heaving himself up before easing himself from Shelton’s body. As soon as he does, Shelton slumps; a puppet with all his strings cut. His lazy smile follows Eugene as he stands and moves across the room to discard the rubber in the trash. 

“Good?” Eugene asks, unable to help the smile tugging his lips as he watches Shelton roll onto his back and stretch, stomach messy with his release. He groans, twisting his hands over his head, ribs stark through his tawny skin as he stretches to the side a little. _Overgrown cat_ , Eugene thinks fondly, as Shelton presses his cheek to the bed and peeks at Eugene again; eyes half slitted.

“Good.” He drawls, stretching the word right out to its limit, a grin sliding over his face. “Great. Fantastic. Perfect.” His grin widens, just toeing the line of goofy, and he breaks into a laugh when Eugene rejoins him on the bed, sliding his hands over his ribs as he presses a kiss to Shelton’s bony sternum. “C’mere, sugar.” He nudges his fingers under Eugene’s chin, guiding him up and up until Shelton can kiss him, affectionate and sweet, his smile breaking them apart. Eugene ducks his face into Shelton’s throat and kisses him there just to make him laugh, feeling sleepy and fucked out and so in love. So close to bursting with the way his heart won’t stop swelling, and Eugene can see the same in Shelton; in the shine of his eyes, the way he can’t bite back on his grin even though he keeps trying. He throws his head back against the sheets, baring his throat to Eugene’s mouth as he murmurs, “Jesus, I missed that.”

“Yeah?”

“Fuck, yeah.” Shelton grunts, and shifts; propping himself up on his hands to glance down himself. The cum drying on his belly, in his body hair. He pulls a face. “You gotta towel?”

They clean themselves up the best they can; Shelton splashing water from the chipped little sink in the corner of the room on himself, scrubbing at his pits and his stomach as he hisses at the shock of cold on his skin. Eugene watches him, admiring the smooth muscle of his arms and legs, the patch of dark hair running from just below his sternum to the base of his cock. It feels completely novel to be able to watch him so freely, to be naked around him so comfortably, and Eugene holds his arms out for Shelton as he finishes up and comes back to bed. He folds into Eugene’s chest like he’s never been gone, pressing a clumsy kiss to the corner of his mouth before diving across him in search of his pants, strewn on the floor.

“Bingo.” He mutters, snatching his smokes and his lighter from the pockets, and his hair is wild when he rights himself, grinning. “Wanna smoke?” He shifts, hauling himself into a crosslegged position with a grunt as he flicks at the lid of his Zippo.

Eugene just smiles at him, helplessly full of affection for the man. “Yeah.” He murmurs, when Shelton raises his eyebrows; prompting. The light picks him out in tones of gold, otherworldly, and Eugene feels like he should be able to push his hand right through him, and watch his hand close on thin air. “I can’t believe you’re actually here.” He says, and his hand bumps up against the warm, tacky skin of Shelton’s chest. No clutching on thin air. Shelton’s eyes drop to where Eugene has touched him, and his expression is playful when they lift again, deep green cast seaglass by the light. 

“What, even after all that?”

Eugene grins, and pulls himself upwards until he’s leaning back against the headboard. “Apparently so.”

Shelton’s eyes curve fondly, and he tosses Eugene his pack of smokes before leaning forward to chuck him under the chin. “Well get used to it.” He says, dropping his eyes to his cigarette as he lights it, and Eugene watches; rapt, wanting that gaze back on him again. Shelton raises his chin, puffing on his smoke to get it going. “You ain’t gonna be able to get rid of me now.”

Eugene wants to say, _promise?_ but knows it’s too much even for him. Hopeless romantic that he is, he can’t stop from swaying into that little throwaway comment of Shelton’s; heart lighting up all giddy at the sentiment. It was only ever Shelton who could turn him over all teenage like this. “What made you sure I’d be waiting on you?” He asks, instead, and his words come out far more heartfelt that the little quip he’d been aiming for. He sees Shelton’s brows climb, and grimaces internally, silently damning the way sex always gets him in such a candid mood.

Shelton kisses his teeth, eyes hazy through the cigarette smoke. “Ain’t I always been a gamblin’ man?”

“A bad one.” Eugene says, on reflex, and slumps with relief when Shelton throws his head back and laughs. For some reason, that last exchange the two of them had had rises from the murky depths of his traitorous memory. _Mount of Venus_ , he thinks, in Shelton’s voice. The tap tap of his finger to that broken little line. He brushes his thumb over it, settling over the staggered line until Shelton hands him his Zippo and he breaks from it. _She never loved wrong_.

“Even a loser’s gotta make a good bet once.”

Eugene snorts, and turns his attention to his cigarette just to hide his expression from Shelton. Will he ever get accustomed to these rare moments of sincerity from him? It was hard to say whether he even wanted to or not. Just when he thought Shelton couldn’t surprise him any longer, he goes and does it. “You knew I’d come.” He manages, watching Shelton reach for the ashtray on the side table; the stretch of his skin over his ribs with the movement. The late hour and the lingering effects of their sex have Eugene in an odd, dreamy state of mind. It’s easy to motion Shelton closer for a kiss, and Eugene is sure he’ll never get over the novelty of being able to do _that_ so easily. “You always knew I would.”

Shelton smiles at him, balancing the ashtray on Eugene’s stomach as he moves to press up against his side. “Yeah, boo.” He taps his fingers to Eugene’s chest, face half-shadowed by the light. “Never doubted you.” His cigarette flares, and there’s something so honest and so vulnerable in Shelton’s eyes that Eugene doesn’t even want to blink, lest he miss it. 

“Why’re you looking at me like that?” Eugene asks, lips numb, boneless under Shelton’s attention. Slow, he takes a drag from his cigarette, and his eyelids dip for a moment as he glances down to ash his smoke, before inching them back up to Eugene’s face. 

“Just thinking.” He says, gorgeous in the gold light, gorgeous with the reddish marks of Eugene’s teeth on his throat. The scrutiny of his gaze twists, suddenly, that cold pin a sudden source of anxiety. For a moment, Eugene wishes he wasn’t nude.

“Comparing?” Eugene asks, that knee jerk compulsive return to his fears of the morning. Of Shelton seeing something in him that he knew wasn’t him. 

Shelton’s expression smoothes into a blank expression of bemusement, and then he’s frowning, bracing his hand against the headboard as he leans to the side to look Eugene right in the eye. “Why’d you think that?” He asks, brow crumpled in such a sincere show of confusion that Eugene almost discards his fear for a second. Almost. 

He shrugs, and glances away; easier to fix eyes on the darkness of the night beyond the window than meet Shelton’s gaze. “Am I stupid to wonder if you’ve noticed I’ve changed?”

There’s a beat of silence, and when Eugene glances at him, that same expression of bemusement hadn’t yet faded from Shelton’s face. His eyes flick to the side, and then back. “I haven’t.” And then, “Would it make a difference?”

Eugene doesn’t know how to voice the fears that have been gripping him so close for the past few months of Shelton’s absence. Since the New Year, since his wounding, maybe even since that first rainy night he had killed a man close enough to see the life leave his eyes. Eugene swallows, and finally lights his cigarette; more for something to do with his hands, his mouth, than out of any real need. “Would it?” He asks, and Shelton’s mouth pulls to the side, thoughtful. His chest still shines with the sweat from their sex, and Eugene only feels guilty for interrupting the mood for a second before Shelton speaks again.

“Ain’t we all changed?” He asks, and unsticks his hand from its grip on the headboard; slides it into Eugene’s lap to link their fingers together. “Ain’t it a little unreasonable to expect to come outta all that the same?”

He hasn’t answered the question, but Eugene doesn’t want a repeat of the same back and forth from the bar. Sometimes it was easier to sidestep the big questions, the big conversations, in moments like these; untethered from the rest of the world, and from time. In the universe they’re inhabiting in that moment, it doesn’t matter if Eugene’s changes or Shelton’s changes would make a different or not. In their universe, all that matters is the play of light on the ceiling, on Shelton’s profile; and his hand in Eugene’s, his knee pressed to Eugene’s bare thigh as he shifts to cuddle up next to him again. 

“I was afraid you wouldn’t want me like this.” Eugene offers; an easy, honest route to the answer he wants so badly to hear from Shelton. Pocket universe or not, his anxieties exist within and without. He covers his expression behind his cigarette, and Shelton presses a kiss to his shoulder that makes him blurt, “And my scar, I didn’t know if-”

Shelton pulls back, and Eugene watches the confused bounce of his gaze over Eugene’s bare body curiously for a second, before a thin little thread of understanding niggles at him. _He hadn’t noticed._ On reflex, the fingers of Eugene’s free hand drop to his side, to that knot of scar tissue marring him above the hip, and watches as Shelton’s eyes follow the movement, tilting his head so he can see better. 

“Oh,” He murmurs, as his eyes land on the spot Eugene can’t bear to even touch. “Gene, lemme see.” His voice is uncharacteristically soft, and he leaves his cigarette to balance in the ashtray that Eugene had shifted to the bedsheets as he slides his thumb gently along the thick scar. Eugene can’t help the shiver that goes through him at the touch; half disgust and half something else he can’t put name to. The intimacy is astounding. Eugene doesn’t know if he’d felt as close to Shelton when he’d been inside him as he does now, with his fingers pressed up against that violent red gouge of a scar. Their heads tipped close together as they look at it; Shelton’s broad thumb fitted right up against it. “I didn’t see it.” Shelton murmurs, and all it takes is a squeeze of Eugene’s hand to his shoulder to have him moving away from it. “Genie, what happened?”

There’s no way to soften it, so Eugene doesn’t even try. “I got shot.” He says, and laughs uselessly, drawing a hand over his face. “I got _grazed_.”

Shelton’s fingers find his side again. “Looks a little more than grazed, boo.” His tone is concerned, like Eugene is liable to open back up and start bleeding all over the bedsheets at any moment. He doesn’t have anything to say to that, so he keeps quiet, and lets Shelton work through whatever is visibly ticking over in his brain. Eugene doesn’t miss the path his eyes make to the strung dime around Eugene’s throat. “You kept it.” He murmurs, and Eugene inclines his head.

“I did.”

Shelton’s face is a mask of regret. His mouth twists, and he detaches from the scar; leaning back until he’s out of Eugene’s space entirely. “I’m sorry,” He offers, and Eugene frowns at him, not following. “I shouldn’t’ve left.”

“It ain’t your fault.” Eugene says, bemused, feeling very nude under Shelton’s gaze. He pulls the bedsheets over himself, despite the close heat of the room, and Shelton shuffles back a little further to let him. The slow slide into conversations that Eugene wanted to save for the light of day seems inexorable, and Eugene has always been helpless to prevent the turn of Shelton’s thoughts towards the negative. 

“I knew somethin’ like this was gonna happen.” He murmurs, eyes downcast as he draws the ashtray closer to him. Eugene sighs, sheets pooling at his hips as he leans forward to take Shelton’s face in his hand. His eyes flick up to meet Eugene’s; big and dark and wary in his face. 

“How can I keep you for blamin’ yourself for everythin’?” He asks, and Shelton’s eyes soften, and he snorts, turning his head as he tries to break from Eugene’s touch. 

“Not everythin’,” He says, the line of his mouth soft and self-pitying as he moves to grind his cigarette out in the ashtray. The curl of smoke clings to his fingers, to his knuckles, before dissipating. “Just the preventable things.”

“Well I don’t think me gettin’ shot in some rice paddy firefight woulda been very preventable if you’d been there or not.” 

Shelton fixes Eugene with a disparaging look. “You don’t know that.” He mutters, and Eugene snorts.

“I think I do.”

Eugene’s fears are forgotten under the reveal of the nature of his scarring, and he can’t help but resent the shift of topic even if he knows it’s for the best. He’s always been the type to pick at something until it bleeds, exhausting things to the bare bones and still not finding the answer he needs, or wants. It’s only recently that he’s been realising that perhaps the reason for that is that there’s no answer that would satisfy him. If Shelton says yes, then he thinks Eugene is changed, which would upset him. If Shelton says no, then Eugene could contest it and exhaust it down to the ground. There's no winning, when it comes to the obsessive spiral of his thoughts, sometimes. Better to let Shelton lean across him to turn the lamp off, better to let their heads hit their pillows and leave the talk of change and regret for another time. 

Shelton’s hand finds his; their heads tipped close together as they let the dark settle over them like a second blanket. The fan whirrs in Eugene’s ear, cutting through the relative silence of the night, but not enough to irritate. Against his temple, he can practically hear the cogs of Shelton’s mind turning. 

“I was afraid, too.” He admits, finally, and his thumb passes over Eugene’s knuckles; their palms sweaty in their grip under the covers. “Of seein’ you again after leavin’ you like that. Wasn’t sure if I’d recognise you when I saw you again, or the other way around.”

The wooden blinds over the window rattle in the silence that follows Shelton’s words; the wind picking up outside, the soft _whoosh_ of rainfall thrown against the glass. The storm, ratcheting back up again. Eugene watches the curtains drift in the breeze coming through the cracked window, semi-lit by a streetlamp outside, as he works through what Shelton had said. “You knew we were gonna meet again?” He settles on, and watches as Shelton’s eyes curve in amusement, just barely visible through the dark room. His hand tightens around Eugene’s.

“I thought so.” He says, voice suddenly too quiet for the rain beginning to drum heavier and heavier on the windowpane. Eugene can’t take his eyes from Shelton’s face, straining through the darkness in an attempt to catalogue every emotion that flits over it. “Wasn’t sure what’d happen when I did see you again, but knew it was gonna happen.”

“What were you afraid of?” Eugene breathes, half wondering if he really wants to know. Shelton’s eyes flick away to some point over Eugene’s shoulder, and he can feel the dip of Shelton’s waist under his hand as he exhales.

“Findin’ out I was somethin’ to pass the time.” He murmurs, and the rain lashes hard against the window, the blinds rattling with the force of the wind that brings with it the smell of rain, of wet streets. Neither of them move to close it, yet. Eugene is laid frozen under Shelton’s half-formed thought. “Wasn’t sure if you needed me, or just anybody.”

“You.” Eugene blurted, quick, before Shelton could ascribe any meaning to his silence. “Just you.” He snorts, the notion so upsetting that it flips all the way back around to absurd. “I didn’t join the Marines to widen my damn dating pool.”

Making light of it is a risk, and Eugene goes limp when Shelton laughs; ducking his head a little so he can bump his forehead to Eugene’s shoulder. “Well when you put it like that…” He mumbles, a trace of self deprecation in his voice that Eugene is quick to jump on.

“No, no,” He says, squeezing at Shelton’s waist; the warm curve of it under his palm. “I’ve felt the same, too. It ain’t ridiculous.” He thinks of Shelton’s letter, that bombshell that had so deftly shaken up his last handful of weeks in country. _Everyone’s fucking hard up in war for a little affection._ He wonders how long this fear has been rattling around in Shelton’s head, and guesses it’s probably as long as his own anxieties of being changed by Vietnam have been. “I mean, I thought there weren’t a chance in hell of all this happenin’,” He says, and gestures broadly; the letter, the bar, the sex, the two of them laid up in bed after all of it. “Especially after I got shot, I got real hopeless. Hell, I almost chickened out just on the way to the bar.” Shelton snorts, and Eugene squeezes at the hand still holding his own, twisted between them. “It’s all nerve-wrackin’. The not knowin’ for sure.”

“Well you can know for sure now.” Shelton says, and the blinds rattle again as a new wave of rain is thrown against the window. Eugene regrets sliding it open earlier, especially when Shelton detaches from him with a grunt; crossing the room to shut it with a resolute bang. The storm outside quiets, cosily muffled against the glass that Shelton stands silhouetted against for a second, staring down at the street. Eugene watches him, tucking away the moment into that old bank of snapshots he has in his mind; his tight curls, the small dip of his waist, his bony chest. If he concentrates, Eugene can match him up against the stranger he’d met those first days in country just perfectly. A lifetime ago, a world away. 

“Come back to bed.” He murmurs, and Shelton turns, and pauses. Eugene knows he’s watching him just the same, and can’t hold back on the knee jerk reaction to wonder what it is that Shelton is seeing when he gazes at him. That bright cold slide of the entomologist’s pin through his heart. Can Shelton match up the boy Eugene had been and the man Vietnam had forced from him just as easily? 

“I ain’t goin’ nowhere.” Shelton continues, as he takes a step back in the direction of the bed. "I knew that I weren't gonna fit in your world, but then I realised I just don't care." He’s a spectre against the dark blue square of the window, voice low under the white noise rush of the rain outside and the hardworking fan by Eugene’s head. “So no more nerves. No more second guessin’.”

He joins Eugene back under the covers, pressing close to Eugene as if the heat of the room doesn’t have them sweating lying still. He gathers Shelton close despite it; anything to make up for their lost time, for the time they had together but couldn’t have each other as they wanted. Shelton kisses him, slow and deep, hands sunk in Eugene’s hair as he hitches his knee up over Eugene’s hip. It’s heated, heavy, but doesn’t tip over into the passion that had sent them into bed in the first place. Shelton holds him steady, tenderly, right on the edge of true arousal under Eugene breaks their kiss with the laugh that he can’t help bubbling up in his chest. True affection and love turning him gooey, giddy; Shelton grins back at him through the darkness, a silent, shadowed wraith as the storm throws itself at the walls around them. 

“I ain’t goin’ nowhere either.” He says, because he feels like the words need to be given the weight only speaking them aloud can. Shelton’s grin widens, his fingers tightening imperceptibly in Eugene’s hair, and Eugene finds he can’t bite back on his own smile either, and doesn’t try to. Gone is that sense of seriousness that had been hanging over them. Gone is the uncertainty, the worry. All his old fears are just that: fears. Not rooted in reality, no matter how much his brain wants to try and trick him over and over that he’s wrong and the fears are right. Not reality, because he and Shelton are here right now and they’re still feeling the same for each other as they ever had, if not _more_ , if not deeper, and realer, than ever before. It’s easy in the pitch black small hours of the morning for Eugene to know this, to recognise this, to see a future rolling out in front of him where there once was emptiness, and where there would be emptiness again, over and over until he fixed his head and fixed Shelton’s presence in there too. 

“Go to sleep, boo.” Shelton mumbles, quiet against Eugene’s temple as he leans in close to kiss his ear, his eyelids, the bridge of his nose. “You’re exhausted. I can hear it in your voice.”

“I don’t know how to tell you how I feel.” Eugene breathes, hand to the nape of Shelton’s neck as he kisses at Eugene’s throat. 

He snorts, voice a low drawl as he replies, “You think I don’t know?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! i really hope you enjoyed this longer chapter, and i'm so excited to share the very end of this fic with you with the FINAL CHAPTER very soon. i don't want to post it during sledgefu week [(running from the 6th of may, btw)](https://sledgefuweek.tumblr.com/post/183921204497/your-votes-have-been-counted-and-we-have-compiled) so i’m gonna put it up the monday after it ends! so keep an eye out! it's a very emotional very exciting time :~)


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rest assured i'm readying my beauty youtuber style apology right now, i can't Believe i forgot to post the final chapter yesterday! sledgefu week really fucked me up lmao! but better late than never, right? the final chapter of a blue million miles, i hope you enjoy!

The next morning, they have sex again; long and slow and languid, stretching them far past the point of any decent midweek lie in. Noon sees them stumbling out of bed and into their clothes, and Shelton steals Eugene’s toothbrush for a quick scrub at his teeth before they fall into the street, still bleary eyed and wrapped up in each other, and doing their very best to leave all that to the room they’d locked behind them. 

The streets are steaming in the bright, hot sunlight; the rain from last night slowly evaporating under that high noon heat. It smells like garbage outside; like hot trash and hot concrete, and Shelton and Eugene wander the streets until their noses adjust to the stink and they find a café to catch a bite to eat. Pastries, bitter iced Vietnamese coffee, and a cigarette. Eugene relaxes back into one of the rickety metal folding chairs he and Shelton have settled themselves in, eyes squinted against the way the numerous puddles are throwing the sunlight back into his eyes, his tender head.

“The whiskey was a mistake.” Shelton croaks, and Eugene slides his gaze his way only to get stuck on the sight of him. Rumpled, handsome, wearing Eugene’s shirt from last night over that ridiculous little wifebeater, throat ringed with the faint bruises from Eugene’s teeth. Products of both the night before and their morning together. He’s slumped down in his chair, legs spread and coffee clutched to his chest like he can’t even bring himself to lift it to his mouth. He catches Eugene’s distraction, and rolls his eyes, a smirk growing on his face. “You’re staring.” He mutters, his own gaze pretty sticky on Eugene despite his words.

“So are you.” Eugene shoots back, and Shelton’s smile grows. 

They eat in silence, soaking up the sunny morning, happy to be in each other’s company with nothing to do but _be_ , for the very first time together. No bullshit patrols to pull them away, no menial little tasks, no busy work. Eugene stretches his legs out underneath the wobbly little bistro table, toying with the straw in his coffee as he touches the toe of his boot to Shelton’s ankle. He tips him a grin in response, chin pressed to his shoulder as he reaches for a pastry. 

“What’s on your mind?” He asks, and Eugene shrugs, crossing his ankles over each other as he turns his gaze down the street. He’s never visited this part of Saigon before; far enough from the main drag that it’s quiet, most of the faces being locals rather than GIs. It’s nice, he realises, to be out with Shelton like this. Near normal, if he ignores a few major details. 

“Nothin’ much,” He murmurs, eyes on the stretch of cobbled streets and storefronts as he turns his happiness over in his mind. Light, in his chest, and amplified when he glances at Shelton and finds him still looking, a smile playing around his mouth, eyes squinted against the sunlight. “You?”

Shelton drops his attention to the pastry he’s methodically shredding to pieces between his fingers. A shrug, and his mouth curls in a playful smirk as he says, “Thinkin’ on last night. This morning.”

Eugene laughs, and leans across to pluck a curl of pastry from the pile on Shelton’s plate; his eyes follow him, pale in the bright daylight, fond. Eugene pops the food in his mouth, still grinning, and replies, “Memorable?”

Shelton snorts, and nudges his plate just out of Eugene’s reach, lounging in his chair as he is. “Somethin’ like that.”

The coffee is strong enough to have Eugene jittering a little, and he finds himself torn between his hangover slump and the bright little thrill of energy the strong coffee is bringing out in him. Caught between chattiness and wanting to soak up the sun until he feels a little less like death warmed over. The distant wail of cicadas is nudging him towards warm nostalgia, and Eugene tips his foot against Shelton’s again, just because he can, just because he wants Shelton to look at him again. He does, and Eugene catches his hand in the worn leather cord of his strung dime as he murmurs, “I read your book.”

Shelton taps his thumbnail to the tall glass their coffee had come in. “What’d you think?”

“I couldn’t read your notes.” Eugene says, straightening up in his chair a little to nab another piece of Shelton’s pastry. He watches him keenly, eyes flicking heavenward for a second before he lowers them back to his coffee. “I left my own.”

“And?”

“Well,” Eugene says slowly, thinking of sunlight on water and the sight of blood dissipating down down into nothing at all. “It was illuminating.” 

“Yeah,” Shelton murmurs, a private little smile playing on his lips as he busies himself with his cigarettes. Once again, Eugene wishes he had even the vaguest idea of what was scrawled illegible in Shelton’s handwriting, in his language, all over the margins and blank spaces of the book. “Ain’t it just?”

“Why _this_ book?” Eugene asks, straightening up in his chair as he watches Shelton roll the flint of his lighter, over and over until the flame finally leaps forward so he can lean the cigarette into it. “Why’d you give it to me?” He’s burning up with the sudden need to share all the thoughts and ideas about it and about Vietnam that had captured him so readily on his countless re-reads of the book. Shelton just shrugs, drawing a long breath through his cigarette as he sets his lighter down on the table.

His eyes are cast down when he speaks, as though shy, and Eugene finds himself watching intently; every minute shift of his expression, his idle tapping on the side of his coffee glass. “Growin’ up on the bayou away from all the cities taught me a little something ‘bout nature.” He mutters, and adds, “That, and everythin’ my grand-mère ever told me ‘bout voodoo before she passed on.” He leans back in his chair, propping his ankle on his knee as he turns his attention off down the street, eyes squinted against the sun. Eugene leans forward, always fascinated by the snapshots of Shelton’s life he manages to glean from time to time. “The book resonated with that in me.” His mouth quirks, self deprecating. “Always found it kinda comforting, despite the end.”

“I think I know why you gave it to me.” Eugene blurts, unable to hold it back any longer. Shelton’s smile widens, pleased behind his cigarette. He plucks it from his mouth, that old, effortless gesture that makes Eugene’s heart ache as he recognises it.

“Go on.” Shelton murmurs, ashing idly between his knees, eyes not straying from Eugene’s face. His scrutiny is daunting, but Eugene forges on. In the back of his mind he realises just how much fun he’s having; sitting out here with the sun on his face, and nothing to do besides talk about something the both of them hold so dear. It feels good, to share something with Shelton that’s not the things they’ve experienced together in war. Not grief, or loss, or sadness. Instead a book, an epiphany, a newfound connection to the earth. Bitter iced coffee and treats he’ll undoubtedly miss once they’re both back Stateside. His shirt on Shelton’s small frame and the memory of his skin under Eugene’s teeth. 

The world narrows, suddenly, as Shelton brushes his fingers over Eugene’s knuckles. A simple, casual touch; affectionate as Shelton laughs and throws his head back at something Eugene says, hand creeping back as though he can’t express his amusement without the squeeze of Eugene’s fingers that follows. The point of connection burns even when Shelton draws his hand away, something warm and slow creeping through Eugene veins as the moment sharpens, and clarifies. The sun on the crown of Eugene’s head, the smell of a city gripped by summer, drying out from the monsoon and stinking to high heaven. Shelton, laughing so hard Eugene could count every filling in his teeth if he wanted to, and then his eyes find Eugene’s and the pin slides home and the huge bright swathe of Eugene’s future unrolls like a promise across the steaming cobbles between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading, and thank you so much for reading all the other 29 chapters to get to where we are right now, haha! it's a big long fic and i'm really grateful for those who hit that kudos button after reading it, those who commented once or twice and Especially those who left me a comment every single week - unless you're a writer i feel like it's hard to convey just how encouraging and exciting it is to recieve comments while uploading such a huge fic like this over many many months, so i really appreciate absolutely anybody who just dropped in to tell me what they liked, or popped over to my tumblr to ask me questions and chat about the fic! the response to this fic has been above and beyond what i expected so i just wanna say thank you :~) it's been so much fun sharing this story with you all, and it's kinda bittersweet that it's over! i've been writing it since october so it's really been my whole damn life for well over six months now! so best believe i'm taking a little break after this haha
> 
> but anyway, thank you so much again! you can find me on tumblr at [getmean](http://getmean.tumblr.com/), and i'll be posting just like a masterlist sort of thing to there very soon just to have the link to the entire work AND the playlist i made for it all in one place :~)


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